The “Super Tuesday” primaries and caucuses, held on 1 March in 11 states across the US, were a political blockbuster, rocketing Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton to daunting leads for their parties’ nomination.
Like any good blockbuster, Super Tuesday has a sequel. Super Tuesday II, which takes place this week, has fewer states in play – Florida, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri and North Carolina – but it could finish what the first Tuesday of March started.
By Wednesday morning Mrs Clinton and Mr Trump may have built near insurmountable leads in their nomination contests. Or the 2016 election saga could continue with countless more episodes in store.
Here’s a quick look at everything that’s at stake this week – and why.
Where do the two presidential nomination contests stand right now?
When figuring out who’s winning and who’s losing in the race for the presidential nominations to the two major US parties, it all comes down to who has the most delegates to the national party conventions. It’s at these conventions, to be held in July, that the Republican and Democratic nominees are chosen.
Although the rules vary slightly, the delegates at both party conventions vote on who gets the nomination and a simple majority carries the day. For the Democrats that means 2,386 out of 4,765 delegates. For Republicans the magic number is 1,237 out of a total of 2,472.
