Super Tuesday, explained

It’s the first day with a whole lot of delegates at stake, and it will shape the future of the contest.

The first day of the Democratic contest that really matters for the cold, hard delegate math — Super Tuesday — is almost here.

Tuesday, March 3, will be enormously important because it’s the first day that a lot of the delegates necessary to win the nomination are at stake, and the biggest delegate day overall. A total of 14 states and one territory — including California and Texas, the two most populous states in the country — will hold their primaries or caucuses.

Candidates are competing for about a third of the overall delegates at stake. Those 1,344 delegates allocated on Super Tuesday could effectively settle the race, if one candidate locks down a gigantic lead that will be nearly impossible for anyone else to overcome. The candidate with the best chance of doing that is Sen. Bernie Sanders — his current lead in the polls indicates he can theoretically rack up enough plurality wins in a crowded field to clean up in delegates.

But it’s also possible that Super Tuesday’s delegate haul ends up split among several candidates, with no one having gotten anywhere close to being on track for a majority. That may well mean Democrats are headed to a contested convention.

Whether we’re headed for one of these outcomes (or something in between) depends to a significant extent on Democrats’ complicated delegate allocation rules.

Broadly, delegates are allotted proportionally based on candidates’ performance — the better you do, the more delegates you get. But quirks in the rules mean relatively small differences in the exact split of the votes can lead to large differences in delegates.