Super Tuesday in Williamsburg

The City of Williamsburg failed to predict either of Virginia’s choice of candidates during the Tuesday Mar. 1 presidential primaries.

Super Tuesday, the day during the presidential primary elections where the largest number of states go to the polls, left Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump as clear winners on a national scale. Both won seven states out of the eleven that voted Mar. 1, bringing Clinton to lead Democrat Bernie Sanders in over a 2:1 ratio in delegates and Trump to lead by almost 100 delegates over the next candidate, Ted Cruz, according to the Associated Press.

In Virginia, both the Democratic and Republican frontrunners prevailed. Clinton led with nearly two-thirds of the vote on Tuesday and Trump pulled ahead by a couple of percentage points over Marco Rubio, who came in second.

However, the City of Williamsburg did not deal either of the frontrunners a victory. On the Democratic side, according to the Virginia Department of Elections, Bernie Sanders squeaked by with 50.68 percent of the vote out of the 2,362 people who voted in Williamsburg on Tuesday.

Government professor and department chair at the College of William and Mary John McGlennon believed Williamsburg’s demographics helped Sanders’ performance.

“Bernie Sanders has consistently performed very well among young voters, and especially among college students,” McGlennon said. “The fact that Williamsburg has a very large number of students who are registered to vote helped Sanders tremendously.”

On the Republican side, Williamsburg dealt Rubio a decisive victory, giving him 40.75 percent of the vote. Donald Trump came in third, securing 21.73 percent of the total 1,524 votes.

Rubio appeals to more affluent and well-educated Republicans, a high population of which live in Williamsburg, according to McGlennon. Although Trump did not win all of the primaries, McGlennon continued, his large appeal increasingly proves problematic to the Republican Party.

“The GOP is facing a real dilemma,” McGlennon said. “If Trump wins the nomination, many Republicans will either sit the election out or even vote for the Democrat.  If Trump loses, he may seek to run as an independent, splitting the party vote. Either way, it is a problem.”