Why Trump and Biden can’t win nominations on Super Tuesday

Super Tuesday will not make President Biden or former President Donald J. Trump a presumptive party nominee, as defined by locking up a majority of nationally available delegates.

But they’ll probably get pretty close and set themselves up to mathematically secure the nominations over the next two weeks.

On the Republican side, Trump needs 1,215 delegates, and currently has 273. With 854 delegates available on Tuesday in the 15 states that hold Republican elections, he can’t reach that threshold even if he wins them all. There are still nine delegates available from American Samoa on Friday, but he will not be there either.

But if he gets the lion’s share of delegates up for grabs, as polls likely suggest, he will be in position to secure the nomination on March 12 (when the Republican primary takes place in Georgia, Hawaii, Mississippi and Washington State). or on March 19 (when Voting in Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Kansas and Ohio).

On the Democratic side, Mr. Biden needs 1,968 delegates, and currently has 206. He cannot secure his nomination on March 12 even if he takes over the administration, but he is poised to do so on March 19.

That it is mathematically possible for Mr. Trump to reach the threshold before Mr. Biden offers no insight into their respective strengths within their parties. That timeline is simply the result of the different processes and delegation allocations by Republicans and Democrats.