WASHINGTON – On March 1, voters in a dozen states will participate in the Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses, revving up an already heated primary season. The crunch time will extend through March 15, when 32 Republican voting entities will have recorded their votes. 

Last week’s primaries had an interesting mix of winners. South Carolina Republicans went to the polls in record numbers on Feb. 20, giving Donald Trump all 50 of the state’s delegates. (There was a 737,924 voter turnout, far surpassing the previous high of 601,166, or a 23% increase.)

Over in Nevada, while Hillary Clinton’s 53%-47% win in the Democratic Caucuses was close, the psychological effect and momentum swing prove greater than her percentage margin. A Bernie Sanders victory could have begun to seriously unravel the Clinton campaign just when the former Secretary of State was fighting to overcome the aftermath of a frayed early start. Safely clearing Nevada, she now has the chance to score big in her strongest geographical region: the South. 

Though Trump increased his Republican delegate lead to 67-11-10-5-3 over his four remaining opponents (Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, John Kasich and Ben Carson, respectively), he is still has only 5% of what he needs to secure the Republican nomination. Meanwhile, Carson has virtually no path to victory and will likely exit the race in the near future.

Democrats next go to South Carolina on Feb. 27, and Clinton enjoys big polling leads over Sanders. While the popular vote has cumulatively favored Sanders through the first three Democratic voting events, the former Secretary of State’s delegate lead is almost to an insurmountable range. The seven southern Super Tuesday voting states could effectively clinch Ms. Clinton the nomination, and unofficially end the Democrat primary campaign.