(CN) - Since getting underway on Feb. 1, the day the Iowa caucuses were held, the 2016 race for the White House has been upending expectations and dominating the nation's print, broadcast and electronic media.
Four contests have been held so far, with the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries, and the Nevada caucuses following Iowa in rapid succession.
But for all the air time and ink devoted to the highly spirited Democratic and Republican contests, a mere smidgen of the total delegations needed to secure the parties' respective presidential nominations have been fought over.
That ends tomorrow Super Tuesday when a total 878 delegates will be on the line, about a quarter of the total needed to secure the ultimate prize.
Both the Republicans and the Democrats will holding primaries in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont and Virginia.
In addition, both parties will be holding caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota.
Republicans will also be holding caucuses in Alaska and Wyoming, while the Democrats will hold a caucus in American Samoa.
In the Republican race, Donald Trump is still generally polling far ahead of his nearest competitors, Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.
According to Real Clear Politics, which monitors to numerous in-state polls, Trump leads his competition by an average 14.5 percent in Virginia; 14.4 percent in Georgia; 27.5 percent in Massachusetts; 8.6 percent in Oklahoma; and 17.7 percent in Alabama.
Trump also holds the lead in polls in Tennessee, Vermont and Alaska.
Rubio is a slight favorite in one poll in Minnesota, and Cruz holds a small lead in an Arkansas poll.
As might be expected, it is in Texas, the state with the most delegates in play, and the home state to Cruz, that the most is at stake.
Cruz, an incumbent senator and the state's former solicitor general, is still ahead of the billionaire real estate developer in the polls on his home turf, but Trump has been closing dramatically in recent days, and it could be a dead heat by the time the polls open Tuesday morning.
Two weeks ago, Cruz led Trump by double digits. The average of the latest polls, as reported by Real Clear Politics, have the senator with a lead of just 9.6 percent.
All of the polls have an average margin of error of plus-or-minus three percent.
As for the Democrats, after her landslide victory in South Carolina of Saturday, a victory that inspired her opponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders, to admit, "we were decimated," Hillary Clinton is widely expected to sweep the Southeast.
In fact, so dominate is Clinton in the polls that the Sanders campaign has reportedly pulled nearly all of its television advertising in the region and reallocated its assets to states where he is considered more competitive.
Sanders best chances for victories Tuesday are in Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Vermont, where slightly less than 300 delegates are in play.
Clinton, who is banking on strong support from black voters, as she did in South Carolina, is seen to have an overwhelming advantage in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. Those states represent a total of 578 delegates.