Missouri presidential preference primary looming March 15

Nevada Daily Mail

Voters in a number of states will have already made their choices by the time that Missouri's presidential preference primary arrives March 15.

Super Tuesday, with voting still being tallied by press time, brings to bear delegate counts from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Colorado, and Virginia. Texas with 155 and Georgia at 76 have the most delegates in play.

Each party had a different slate of contests Tuesday: In Colorado, Democrats were caucusing, but Republicans were not. In Alaska, Republicans were voting, but not Democrats. In the other 10 states, both parties' voters were choosing.

March 5 brings Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Maine, with another 155 delegates in play, then March 8 offers up Hawaii, Idaho, Michigan, and Mississippi, for 150.

Washington, D.C., then has 19 on the 12th, before Missouri joins Florida, Illinois, North Carolina and Ohio. Missouri has 52 delegates of the 358 available for that day, with Florida, at 99, having the most.

Arizona and Utah arrive on March 22, with 98 more.

While some states allow crossover voting, where a registered Democrat could vote for a Republican and vice versa, that's not true in Missouri.

According to the Missouri Secretary of State's website, presidential preference primary voters may select only one party's ballot.

The four established parties in Missouri are Democratic, Republican, Libertarian and Constitution.

Nine names are on the ballot for the Democrats, with Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in a two-person race. Four others have officially dropped out.

The Republican field has 12 names on the ballot, although at this point, only five remain -- Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, John Kasich and Ben Carson.

Five candidates appear on the Missouri ballot for the Libertarian Party. There are none for the Constitution Party.