What surprised you most about Super Tuesday?

[Republican Party Stalwart]

Windham County in Vermont going to Haley was sort of surprising (even though the same wasn't especially true of Haley winning Vermont overall). First of all, Trump won Windham County in the 2016 presidential primary, with a greater percentage of the vote and by a greater margin than he did in Vermont as a whole. Second of all, Windham County voted against Phil Scott and in favor of "outsider"/self-funded/populist-leaning/anti-establishment-leaning/pro-Trump-leaning candidate Bruce Lisman in the 2016 gubernatorial primary, by a relatively comfortable 4.9 percentage point margin, while Vermont as a whole voted 60-39 for Scott. Third of all, Windham County virtually always votes in lockstep with neighboring Cheshire County, New Hampshire in presidential elections (both in the general and the primaries) and has done so in literally every presidential election that has taken place since both states began deciding their electors by popular vote (save for four, all of which are arguably totally negligible examples*, out of forty-nine total starting 1828), and Cheshire County voted for Trump over Haley in the NH primary this year by double digits.

Granted, Trump only lost Windham county by less than two points despite losing Vermont as a whole by over four points, but still.


[*Cheshire County NH has voted differently from Windham County VT in four presidential elections to date: 1836 (when Cheshire voted for Martin Van Buren and Windham for William Henry Harrison), 1848 (when Cheshire voted for Lewis Cass and Windham for Zachary Taylor), 1852 (when Cheshire voted for Franklin Pierce and Windham for Winfield Scott), and 1988 (when Cheshire voted for Bush 41 and Windham for Dukakis). However, in both 1848 and 1852, Cheshire only voted for a different candidate than Windham by plurality and because of a spoiler; neither Cass in 1848 nor Pierce in 1852 would have won Cheshire were it not for the presence of Free Soil candidates Martin Van Buren and John P. Hale on the ballot in 1848 and 1852, respectively, since the Free Soil Party drew most of its support from Whig-leaning voters (with the exception of in New York State in 1848, where former Democratic President Van Buren mostly drew support from anti-slavery Democratic-leaning voters). Furthermore, Franklin Pierce's share of the vote in Cheshire in 1852 was certainly also boosted, as it was in every other county in New Hampshire, by Pierce's status as a favorite son of the state. In 1988, both Cheshire and Windham were decided by single-digit margins.]

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

That it felt like a regular Tuesday. I didn't notice anything 'super' about it anyway.