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TITANIC TUESDAY: BIG AND DECISIVE The primary season effectively ended both when and how many people expected it to – with Al Gore and George W. Bush wrapping it up March 7... <more...>

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THE END OF ROUND ONE

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AFTER NEW HAMPSHIRE: Two Paths Diverge…

THE FIRE WALL HOLDS

OVER THE TOP AND HEAD TO HEAD

A day short of the ides of March, Al Gore and George W. Bush wrapped up their party’s presidential nominations with sweeps of the six Southern primaries that voted on the original Super Tuesday.

The suspense was gone, after the decisive March 7 voting sent their major rivals to the sidelines. But fittingly, both Bush and Gore were

State-by-State Results Page National charts and results from the states that have already voted.

able to accrue the delegates they needed in their home region, much of which could be a battleground in the fall campaign.

Over the last third of the 20th century, the South was the cornerstone of Republican presidential majorities. But the Clinton-Gore ticket chipped into the GOP base in the 1990s – winning five Southern states in both 1992 and 1996, including Georgia in the former year and Florida in the latter.

The primaries across Dixie March 14 served as an early test of strength for this fall’s election. In four of the six states, Bush won more votes than Gore, although the two were never paired on the same primary ballot as they were earlier this year in Washington and California.

Three states, though, did hold open primaries, where any registered voter could take the ballot of either party. One of them was Gore’s home state of Tennessee, where Gore drew roughly 8,000 more votes on the Democratic side than Bush did on the Republican. Another open primary was in Bush’s home state of Texas, where Bush won almost 380,000 more votes than Gore. The third open primary state to vote March 14, Mississippi, gave Bush about 20,000 more primary votes than Gore.

The results were in line with the voting in the 1996 presidential election. Tennessee voted Democratic; Texas and Mississippi voted Republican.

Voter participation in the other three Southern primaries was limited to registered party members. Bush received more votes than Gore in Florida and Oklahoma; Gore had the edge in Louisiana.

Primary turnouts, though, were low across the Super Tuesday South. The number of ballots cast on the Republican side were up from 1996 in only two states, Louisiana and Texas. Meanwhile, turnout was way down on the Democratic side in all six states when compared with 1992, the last year the party had a contest for its presidential nomination.

The absence of significant competition, no doubt, played a major part in the voter malaise. Both Bush and Gore swept each of the six primaries with at least two-thirds of the vote.

Bill Bradley, who had won slightly more than one-quarter of the overall Democratic primary vote as an active candidate, reached 25% only in Oklahoma.

John McCain, who had won at least 25% of the vote in every primary state as an active Republican candidate, could nudge 20% only in Florida. In three states of the Super Tuesday South – Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas – McCain fell into single digits percentagewise.

Meanwhile, Alan Keyes was not a factor in the primary voting March 14. But he was four days earlier when Utah held its first-ever presidential primary. Keyes won 30% of the vote in Utah County (Provo), where he personally campaigned, and finished second behind Bush in the statewide Republican primary balloting with 21%. Prior to the Utah primary, Keyes had reached 10% of the vote in only a few caucus states.

More than 15 presidential primaries remain to be held, starting with Illinois on March 21. But in most of the later states there will also be primary voting for Congress, giving voters a plausible reason to come to the polls.

Following is a comparison of the Bush and Gore vote totals in the six primaries of the Super Tuesday South, with the percentage each candidate won of their party’s primary vote. Totals are based on nearly complete but unofficial returns.

s		Gore	Percentage		Bush	Percentage
Florida		451,822	82%		516,282	74%
Louisiana		112,081	73%		85,338	84%
Mississippi		77,744	90%		98,749	88%
Oklahoma		91,950	69%		98,846	79%
Tennessee		196,438	92%		188,094	77%
Texas		636,542	80%		1,013,886	86%
Total		1,566,577	81%		2,001,195	82%