On Tuesday, Mar. 3, otherwise known as Super Tuesday, thousands of voters from 14 states cast their ballots towards the Democratic candidate of their choice in hopes that they would be chosen as the political party’s presidential nominee. 

The day was one of the most important of the primaries, as enough delegates were awarded that the events of the night could have revealed who was first in line to win the Democratic nomination. In order to win the nomination, a candidate needs to receive at least 1,991 of the total 3,979 delegates available from all of the states, so the 1,357 delegates handed out on Super Tuesday were crucial to every candidate campaigning for the Democratic nomination. The number of delegates that each state had to offer directly correlated with the size of the state’s population, meaning that highly-populated states like California and Texas were the coveted prizes of the night.

The days leading up to Super Tuesday saw the exit of well-known candidates such as Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, narrowing the group of frontrunners to former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders. Other notable candidates still in the race at that point included Sen. Elizabeth Warren and billionaire Mike Bloomberg, but most initial polls indicated the strongest national support for Sanders, with some revealing emerging support for Biden.

Prior to the crucial night, Biden was initially projected to sweep the majority of the Southern states voting that night, including Alabama, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Tennessee, while Sanders was predicted to win states like Vermont, Colorado, Utah, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota and California. The voting predictions for the last remaining state, Texas, were still uncertain at that point. 

Despite these fairly certain predictions, Biden surprised the nation when he won a staggering 10 of the 14 states, including Massachusetts and Minnesota, two states which had strong early voter support for Sanders, as well as Texas, in which he gained 34.5 percent of the vote over Sanders’ 30 percent support. Sanders won in Utah, Colorado and Vermont, and took home the grand prize of California. At press time, Biden currently leads with a total of 670 delegates amassed throughout the Democratic primaries thus far, while Sanders has a total of 574 delegates.

When analyzing the factors influencing the Super Tuesday results, many point to the fact that both Buttigieg and Klobuchar endorsed Biden when ending their campaigns, which is said to have greatly swayed voters making a last-minute decision. In any case, while the results show Biden currently in the lead, the race is still very close between Sanders and Biden, and may continue to be so, especially since they are the last major Democratic candidates remaining.