It is going to be a busy Super Tuesday, and one where I will not be able to cover each one of the night's 16 contests. I will only be able to cover the high points, such as they are.
The first contest to wrap up for the day is American Samoa, an archipelago of a little under 60,000 people.
The residents of American Samoa are not United States citizens, but rather United States nationals, for reasons dating back to the 19th century and the Samoans wishing to keep some of their own political and social structures. After more than a century of this compromise, a federal judge in Utah has recently ruled that that is not possible, since the 14th Amendment is pretty clear that anyone born in United States jurisdiction is a citizen. So the political standing of American Samoa may be changing soon.
All of which is a bit afield from tonight's results. Michael Bloomberg, tech billionaire turned New York City mayor, has kept out of the first four contests of the season, gambling his chances on an advertising blitz for Super Tuesday, where he hoped that he would emerge as some sort of consensus candidate. This strategy has been tried before, and has always failed, as the small but traditional contests are seen as hallmarks of legitimacy. But in an island with a small population that is also a caucus state, meaning that only a few hundred people were making the decision, Bloomberg's strategy worked, and he won American Samoa with 175 votes (not a margin, total votes), earning a little under 50% of the vote. Tankie Tulsi Gabbard got second.
Preliminary results suggest that Bloomberg's strategy was not that successful otherwise, especially considering the amount of money he put into it. But he will have some delegates, thanks to American Samoa. But given American Samoa's uncertain political future, another option emerges: Michael Bloomberg wants to be president of something. The people of American Samoa must decide their political status. Instead of just buying the nation's allegiance in the caucus, Bloomberg has enough money to literally buy the islands, and declare himself president for life.