--- title: Super Tuesday History: The Failed Strategy That Started It description: It was meant to get Southern Democrats in office canonical: https://time.com/4234474/super-tuesday-history/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-03-01T09:00:33.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T15:18:38.666Z article:section: History og:title: Super Tuesday History: The Failed Strategy That Started It og:description: It was meant to get Southern Democrats in office og:url: https://time.com/4234474/super-tuesday-history/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt640aab7f524293de/69887ed22dce0129199e7ee7/super-tuesday.jpeg?branch=production&width=533&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 533 og:image:height: 300 og:image:alt: Super Tuesday og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Super Tuesday History: The Failed Strategy That Started It twitter:description: It was meant to get Southern Democrats in office twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt640aab7f524293de/69887ed22dce0129199e7ee7/super-tuesday.jpeg?branch=production&width=533&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Failed Strategy That Created Super Tuesday > Sponsored content. 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Its journalism is reported and edited by a professional newsroom led by Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs, with named correspondents on politics, climate, health, technology and culture. It reaches 1 million US print subscribers and 1.15 million globally, plus more than 1.1 million newsletter readers. #### How do I subscribe to TIME magazine? Subscriptions are at time.com/subscribe-agent. Choose digital only at $20 a year, or print and digital from $29 a year or $49 for two years. TIME also publishes seven free email newsletters at time.com/newsletters, which do not require a subscription. #### Can I cancel a TIME subscription? Yes. TIME states that subscriptions can be cancelled at any time. #### Does TIME have free newsletters? Yes. TIME publishes seven free email newsletters reaching more than 1.1 million readers, covering daily news, Washington politics, health, AI, climate and energy, culture, and the newsroom itself. They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-sub-2026q3/newsletters?i=70040827-c564-4d2f-ab25-61b3174605b5&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1) * TIME Subscriptions: [time.com/subscribe-agent](/c/time-sub-2026q3/subscribe?i=70040827-c564-4d2f-ab25-61b3174605b5&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1)  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Mar 1, 2016 9:00 AM UTC  A sign directs voters in San Francisco on Super Tuesday—Feb. 5—in 2008. A sign directs voters in San Francisco on Super Tuesday—Feb. 5—in 2008. David Paul Morris—Getty Images  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Mar 1, 2016 9:00 AM UTC On Tuesday, the remaining presidential candidates will pin their hopes on contests in about a dozen states, depending on the party, from Alaska to Alabama. The results of “Super Tuesday” [could mean the end of the line for some candidates](http://time.com/4227239/ben-carson-campaign-south-carolina/), and [just one more step in a long fight](http://time.com/4215117/new-hampshire-primary-results-bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-fight/) for others. When did Super Tuesday become a thing? [Voting on that day of the week is an old tradition in the U.S.](http://time.com/4089657/history-election-day/), but the 1976 election is often credited for leading to the first recorded uses of that particular phrase ([here’s one example](http://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1976/05/09/76390315.html?pageNumber=136), from the New York _Times_, in which it’s hyphenated). TIME’s [earliest usage](http://time.com/vault/issue/1980-06-16/page/18/) came the following primary season, in 1980\. That year, Sen. Edward Kennedy set his sights on a day when eight states voted in his ultimately unsuccessful bid to replace President Jimmy Carter as the Democratic nominee. After that, the phrase was in increasingly common use. **Watch live:** [Super Tuesday voting takes place across the U.S.](http://time.com/4242287/super-tuesday-2016-primary-results-live-stream-online/) The more interesting question is _why_. Considering the amount of attention that goes to the states with early caucus and primary dates, like [Iowa](http://time.com/4196949/caucus-history/) and [New Hampshire](http://time.com/4204347/new-hampshire-primary-history/) and [South Carolina](http://time.com/4219814/south-carolina-primary-dirty-politics/), why would so many states opt not to get their own days in the sun? One reason, as explained by Barbara Norrander in the appropriately titled book [_Super Tuesday_](https://books.google.com/books?id=W70eBgAAQBAJ), is that the Democratic party was suffering in the South. Norrander traces the beginning of Super Tuesday as an institution to 1988, when the party got fed up with a decades-long pattern. Every nominating contest, it seemed, resulted in non-Southern Democrats—who generally voted earlier—giving crucial momentum to a candidate who ultimately couldn’t win in that region. If Southern states held their primaries all together, on a relatively early day, the reasoning went that they would have more influence on the eventual nominee. So in the lead-up to 1988, many of those states—or at least the ones where Democrats had enough say in the state legislatures—scheduled their primaries for the same day, Mar. 8\. (A couple of Northern states would vote on that day, too.) The rationale made sense. Except it didn’t work–at least at first. Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis wound up appearing on more primary ballots on Mar. 8, 1988, than JFK did in his entire campaign for the White House. And then the Northeastern Democrat got creamed in the general election, which was [a landslide for Republican candidate George H.W. Bush](http://time.com/vault/issue/1988-11-21/page/1/). But Super Tuesday stuck around. And in 1992, the notion that led to its creation finally paid off: Bill Clinton, who [swept](http://www.nytimes.com/1992/03/11/us/the-1992-campaign-assessment-super-tuesday-transforms-campaign.html?pagewanted=all) the Southern Super Tuesday contests, went on to win the White House thanks in part to general election victories in several Super Tuesday states. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4234474/super-tuesday-history/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4234474/super-tuesday-history/"},"headline":"The Failed Strategy That Created Super Tuesday","datePublished":"2016-03-01T09:00:33.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T15:18:38.666Z","description":"It was meant to get Southern Democrats in office","url":"https://time.com/4234474/super-tuesday-history/","keywords":["politics","Election","Super Tuesday"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt640aab7f524293de/69887ed22dce0129199e7ee7/super-tuesday.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt640aab7f524293de/69887ed22dce0129199e7ee7/super-tuesday.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Super Tuesday","caption":"California Voters Participate In The State's Pivotal Primary","creditText":"David Paul Morris—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/politics/","name":"politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4234474/super-tuesday-history/","name":"The Failed Strategy That Created Super Tuesday"}}]}] ```