Central parts of an election law dating back to the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, the Voting Rights Act, appeared to be in jeopardy Wednesday after the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a challenge to them.

NBC’s Pete Williams reported after the oral argument that key provisions of the 1965 law “are in big trouble. The question is how far will the Supreme Court go” in striking down parts of the law?

The justices were weighing an appeal from Shelby County, Ala., asking the court to find that Congress exceeded its power when it renewed the two key sections of the law in 2006. A decision is expected before the court ends its current term this coming June or July.

Under Section 5 of the law, nine states, mostly in the South, but also including Alaska and Arizona, as well as dozens of counties, townships, cities, and elected boards in other states, must get permission, or “preclearance,” from the Justice Department or a federal court in Washington for any change in voting procedures, no matter how small, that they seek to make.

The formula used to determine which states and other jurisdictions are covered by the preclearance requirement is set forth in section 4 of the law.

“It’s pretty safe to say that there at least five votes to strike down” either section 4 or section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, “either the coverage formula or preclearance totally,” Williams reported.

Williams added what seemed to concern a majority of the justices was “the fact that the law is too backward looking.”

Shelby County’s lawyer Bert Rein argued that Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act – which Congress renewed for another 25 years in 2006 – is unconstitutional because the formula used to determine which states are covered is outdated – based on voter turnout and registration data from 1972.

The blatant racial intimidation and discrimination in voting procedures that prevailed in states such as Alabama when the law was written in 1965 and renewed in 1970, 1975, and 1982, no longer exist, the county says.

Overshadowing Wednesday’s argument was the Supreme Court’s decision in a 2009 Texas case, Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One vs. Holder. In that decision, the court expressed doubts about the continued need for Section 5, noting that “voter turnout and registration rates now approach parity” between whites and blacks in the states covered by section 5.

Evan Vucci / AP

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif.,speaks during a rally outside the Supreme Court in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2013, before arguments in the Shelby County, Ala., v. Holder voting rights case. The justices are hearing arguments in a challenge to the part of the Voting Rights Act that forces places with a history of discrimination, mainly in the Deep South, to get approval before they make any change in the way elections are held. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Solicitor General Donald Verrilli said the justices should defer to the judgment that Congress made in 2006 that the coverage formula was “rational and effective.” To that Justice Anthony Kennedy replied, “Well, the (1947) Marshall Plan was very good, too, the (1862) Morrill Act, the (1787) Northwest Ordinance, but times change.”

Kennedy suggested that the law had the effect of denying some states of their right to self-government -- in effect putting them “under the trusteeship of the United States Government.”

Related: Landmark civil rights law faces critical Supreme Court test

Addressing the question of why Congress had extended Section 5 in 2006 with no opposition at all in the Senate, Justice Antonin Scalia said it was “very likely attributable, to a phenomenon that is called perpetuation of racial entitlement. It's been written about. Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes.”

He said for most members of Congress there’s little to be gained by voting against continuation of the key sections of the law. “I am fairly confident it will be reenacted in perpetuity unless a court can say it does not comport with the Constitution.”

But the liberal justices were quick to defend the sections of the law which Shelby County is challenging.

The court’s newest member, Justice Elena Kagan, appointed by President Barack Obama in 2010, said Alabama still deserved to be singled out for coverage under section 5.

She said section 5 “seems to work pretty well” in targeting the places where there are the most successful lawsuits under a separate section of the Voting Rights Act, section 2.

That part of the law, which isn’t being challenged in the Shelby County case, bans all voting procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or membership in a language minority group. Unlike Sections 4 and 5 of the law, Section 2 covers all 50 states.

“If Congress were to write a formula that looked to the number of successful Section 2 suits per million residents, Alabama would be the number one state on the list,” Kagan told Rein.

Kagan said that “under any formula that Congress could devise” Alabama would still be a targeted state.

Another liberal justice who defended section 5, Justice Stephen Breyer compared racially discriminatory voting procedures to a disease. “It's an old disease, it's gotten a lot better, a lot better, but it's still there,” he said. “So if you had a remedy that really helped it work, but it (discrimination) wasn't totally over, wouldn't you keep that remedy?”

But Rein argued that the high court ought to “remove the stigma” of preclearance from the states “and the unequal application based on data that has no better history than 1972.”

Justice Samuel Alito suggested to Verrilli that “maybe the whole country should be covered” by section 5 or “maybe certain parts of the country should be covered based on a formula that is grounded in up-to-date statistics.”

When Verrilli defended the section 5 of the law, Chief Justice John Roberts asked him, “Do you know which state has the worst ratio of white voter turnout to African American voter turnout?”

Verrilli said he did not, to which Roberts replied: “Massachusetts. Do you know what has the best, where African American turnout actually exceeds white turnout? Mississippi.”

Roberts then asked Verrilli which state has the greatest disparity in registration between whites and African Americans, and again Verrilli did not know.

Again Roberts answered Massachusetts. He added that in Mississippi, “the African American registration rate is higher than the white registration rate.”

Verrilli argued Wednesday that “changes in the polling places at the last minute before an election can be a source of great mischief. Closing polling places, moving them to inconvenient locations, et cetera.” He explained that Section 5 requires “those kinds of changes to be pre-cleared and on a 60-day calendar which effectively prevents that kind of mischief. And there is no way in the world you could use Section 2 to effectively police that kind of mischief.”

He argued in the Justice Department brief that Section 2 isn’t an adequate barrier against discrimination in voting partly because it places the burden of proof on plaintiffs who challenge allegedly discriminatory procedures, while Section 5 places the burden of proof on the states or counties to show that their procedures aren’t discriminatory.

This story was originally published on Wed Feb 27, 2013 12:12 PM EST

Agreeing to hear another important case on race in America, the Supreme Court said Friday it will take up a battle over a key part of the landmark Voting Rights Act. Civil rights groups fear the court will use this case to gut the law.

Passed by Congress in 1965 and renewed four times since then, most recently in 2006, a key provision requires states with a history of discrimination at the polls to get federal permission before making any changes to election procedures -- from redrawing congressional district boundaries to changing the locations of polling places.

The law was at the core of the legal cases this year blocking strict new voter ID laws in Texas and South Carolina.

Shelby County, Ala., claims the pre-clearance requirement -- which currently covers nine entire states, 12 cities and 57 counties elsewhere -- is unconstitutional. Under the law, those states and areas are presumed to be acting improperly whenever they seek election changes and "must either go hat in hand to Justice Department officialdom to seek approval, or embark on expensive litigation in a remote judicial venue," says the lawyer for the county.

The areas covered by the law, Shelby County says, include some localities that have made substantial reforms while missing other parts of the country that have failed to root out discrimination at the polls.  "Florida has been forced into pre-clearance litigation to prove that reducing early voting from 14 days to 8 is not discriminatory, when states such as Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania have no early voting at all," the county says.

But the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund says the current map is a close enough fit to cover the areas of greatest concern.  "Congress is not a surgeon with a scalpel when it acts to legislate across the 50 states. But it can reasonably attack discrimination where it finds it," the group says.

Three years ago, the Supreme Court narrowly rejected a challenge to the pre-clearance  requirement but strongly suggested that several justices had doubts about its constitutionality, given recent electoral reforms. "Things have changed in the South," the court said in 2009.  "Blatantly discriminatory evasions of federal decrees are rare."

Last month, the Supreme Court heard another racially charged case, re-examining whether the nation's colleges can use affirmative action in admissions.

Win Mcnamee / Getty Images

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney waits to speak while being introduced during a campaign stop at the Whistle Stop cafe March 12, 2012 in Mobile, Alabama.

Why Romney could lose tonight… And why he could win… Polls close in Alabama and Mississippi at 8:00 pm ET, and they close at 2:00 am ET for Hawaii’s caucuses… The final ad-spending numbers for tonight’s contests: Romney and allies outspent Gingrich 3-to-1 and Santorum 4-to-1… On the NYT/CBS poll and the Chewbacca Defense… Speeding up the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan?... And Obama and Cameron to take in NCAA tournament hoops game from Dayton, OH at 6:30 pm ET.

*** Why Romney could lose: With polling all over the place in Alabama and Mississippi -- two states not usually associated with well-known polls -- we’re not sure anyone has a good idea how tonight’s races will turn out. But we’re on firmer ground to explain why Mitt Romney could lose in these southern states, as well as why he could win. Let’s start with the former: Beyond ideology, Romney could lose due simply to the demographics. Averaging the nine states where Romney WON (and where exit polls were available), 51% of GOP primary voters were college grads, 31% made more than $100,000 a year, and 35% were born-again or evangelical Christians. But the averages for the states where Romney LOST is 48% college grads, 28% making more than $100,000, and 68% evangelical Christians. So where do Alabama and Mississippi fit in here? Well, they look more like the states where he has lost. In Alabama in ‘08, per the exit polls, just 42% of GOP primary voters said they were college grads, 18% made more than $100,000, and 77% were evangelical Christians. In Mississippi, the numbers were similar: 38% college grads, 19% making more than $100,000, and 69% evangelical Christians. Focus on the evangelical number; that could the best explainer.

*** And why he could win: Yet despite those ideological and demographic challenges for Romney, there also are three reasons why he could win. Reason #1: Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum could split up the anti-Romney vote. Note that Gingrich and Santorum BOTH haven't received 30% in any one contest so far, but the polling out there suggests that they could possibly hit those percentages tonight. Who would have figured that Romney’s best friend in this race right now would be Newt Gingrich? Go figure. Reason #2: Romney and his allies, once again, are greatly outspending the competition (4-to-1 edge over Santorum and his allies and 3-to-1 advantage over Gingrich and his allies). Anytime Team Romney has spent more than 3-1 than opponents in a given state, it’s usually spelled victory. And Reason #3: Although this is much harder to quantify, a Romney win in either Alabama or Mississippi would signal that Republican primary voters are beginning to rally around him, despite the ideology or geography. As Politico’s Martin writes, Romney could seal the deal in Dixie. Then again, look at his vote percentages in previous Dixie primaries: South Carolina (28%), Georgia (26%), and Tennessee (28%). What do they have in common? They’re all below 30%. It would certainly be a shocker if Romney won either state tonight let alone even broke 30%.

*** The skinny on tonight’s races, per NBC’s John Bailey: In Alabama, where polls close at 8:00 pm ET, 47 delegates are at stake -- 21 awarded from congressional districts (two to district winner, one to the runner-up, winner-take-all with a majority), 26 are at large (proportional per statewide vote with 20% threshold, winner-take-all with majority). In Mississippi, where polls also close at 8:00 pm ET, there are 37 delegates at stake -- 12 awarded from congressional districts (proportional with 15% threshold, winner-take-all with 50% plus 1 vote) and 25 at large (proportional per statewide vote with 15% threshold, winner-take-all with 50% plus 1 vote). And in Hawaii’s caucuses, where polls close at 2:00 am ET, 17 delegates are at stake -- six via congressional districts (proportional per district-wide vote) and 11 at large (proportional per statewide vote). By the way, there’s a reason why the Romney folks have concentrated more on Alabama than Mississippi: Because third place in an Alabama congressional district doesn’t net you a delegate, second place there matters a LOT. Just look at the delegate haul for Romney in Georgia, thanks to edging Santorum for second place.

*** The ad-spending numbers for tonight’s races:
Alabama: Restore Our Future $1.4 million, Winning Our Future PAC $400,000, Red White and Blue Fund $275,000, Mitt Romney $234,000, Newt Gingrich $134,000, Rick Santorum $39,000
Mississippi: Restore Our Future PAC $764,000, Winning Our Future PAC $243,000, Red White and Blue Fund $221,000, Newt Gingrich $74,000, Rick Santorum $56,000
Hawaii: Ron Paul $40,000

*** On the trail, per NBC’s Adam Perez: Gingrich hosts a primary night event in Birmingham, AL… Santorum does his event in Lafayette, LA…Romney attends a grassroots event on jobs and economy in St. Louis, MO then heads to Liberty, MO for a caucus event… And Paul will be at the University of Maryland.

*** On national polls and the Chewbacca Defense: Last night’s New York Times/CBS poll was the latest survey to show a job-approval drop for President Obama; in one month, his score declined nine points, from 50% to 41%. This raises the question: What major event occurred in the past month to account for this drop -- or even in the past week, when our NBC/WSJ poll had Obama’s approval rating at 50%? There are two potential culprits here: gas prices and Iran. But did those two issues really account for a nine-point drop, bringing Obama to his lowest rating in that survey (lower than after the debt-ceiling debacle)? What’s more, is it possible for Obama to be at 41% approval but leading Romney by three points (47%-44%) in a head-to head? Invoking the Chewbacca Defense, it just doesn’t make sense. Then again, actions speak louder than words, and the Obama White House has been VERY defensive on gas prices. Bottom line: It’s probably worth waiting for a few more national polls before reaching the conclusion that something has happened to Obama’s standing in the past month.

*** Speeding up the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan? Of course, there’s one additional news story you can add to Obama’s issue matrix for the month of March: Afghanistan. And the New York Times is reporting that, after the civilian killings by a U.S. soldier there, the Obama administration “is discussing whether to reduce American forces in Afghanistan by at least an additional 20,000 troops by 2013, reflecting a growing belief within the White House that the mission there has now reached the point of diminishing returns.” More: “Administration officials cautioned on Monday that no decisions on additional troop cuts have been made, and in a radio interview President Obama reaffirmed his commitment to the Afghan mission in spite of the recent setbacks, warning against ‘a rush for the exits’ amid questions about the American war strategy. ‘It’s important for us to make sure that we get out in a responsible way, so that we don’t end up having to go back in,’ Mr. Obama said in an interview with KDKA in Pittsburgh.”

*** March Madness: You can be sure that Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron will discuss Afghanistan, plus other issues, when they travel to Dayton, OH to watch tonight’s NCAA tournament basketball game there at 6:30 pm ET. The game they will be watching:  Mississippi Valley State vs. Western Kentucky.

Countdown to Election Day: 238 days

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MOBILE, AL -- Standing in front of a retired fighter jet, Rick Santorum on Friday called for voters to make a change in commander in chief and argued that President Obama has not stood up for American troops or for its ally Israel.

Inside the USS Alabama Pavilion, Santorum accused President Obama of abandoning Israel by joining with five other countries offering to resume negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program.

"Yet in the face of President Netanyahu (sic) coming here asking him, imploring the American people to stand by her at her side, the very next day after...the president announced they would start talks with the Iranian government," said Santorum.  "'We got your back,’ [President Obama] said the day when he spoke to AIPAC. And then two weeks later turns his back on Israel again and says well we will negotiate without precondition. This is weakness in the face of hostility."

Santorum has made his hardline stance against Iran a key part of his pitch to Republican voters. He was the only Republican presidential candidate to address AIPAC in person, and he has called for ultimatums for Iran to open up the facilities where nuclear weapons may be developed.

Along with failing to stand up to the potential of a nuclear Iran, the former Pennsylvania senator also accused the president of not standing up for the troops, making reference to a recent incident where a U.S. troop inadvertently burned copied of the Quran.

"American military does something that may offend the sensibilities of people whose sensibilities are easily offended and yet doesn’t stand up for our men and women in uniform as they are fragged, as they are attacked by mobs in Afghanistan," Santorum said. "Ladies and gentlemen, we need a new commander in chief in America."

Santorum spoke to fewer than 100 supporters in an event that organizers say was put together in less than 24 hours.  The GOP candidate did not so much as mention his Republican rivals during the rally.  

Throughout Mississippi and Alabama over the past two days, Santorum has called on voters to deliver the blow that will knock Newt Gingrich out of the race.  A Gingrich spokesman called the southern states must wins for the former Speaker to remain a viable candidate.

Santorum aides have asserted that Gingrich's persistence in the race has split conservative voters and cost Santorum wins in Michigan and Ohio.

Campaigning in an area still feeling the effects of the 2010 BP oil spill, Santorum remained steadfast in his support of offshore drilling. "It is a better option than receiving oil from places in the world that are going to turn around and then use it to attack us," he told reporters after the event.

But at this stop, Santorum abandoned any talk of the social issues that have come to define his candidacy.  Asked why, in the deep South, where social issues are especially important to voters, he shied away from the issues, Santorum said: "Those who follow me a lot know I talk about national security and energy all the time, and it’s an area really of strength for me and not something most people know so we are going to talk about it more."

Jim Young / Reuters

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum addresses supporters at his "Super Tuesday" primary election night rally in Steubenville, Ohio, March 6, 2012.

Rick Santorum's long-term campaign strategy is to upend the trajectory of the GOP primary, and snatch the Republican presidential nomination away from Mitt Romney.

But his more pressing, immediate concern involves winning on Saturday in Kansas, and on Tuesday in Alabama and Mississippi, by which he could finally push Newt Gingrich out of the race.

Santorum would still face long odds to become the Republican nominee, but any march to Tampa would be less impeded if Newt Gingrich were to exit. But the former speaker has suggested he won’t voluntarily drop out of the race before Tuesday, but by describing both contests as “must-win” affairs, he opened the door to being forced out by virtue of a loss in either state.

"The ability for conservatives to win the Republican nomination is greatly diminished by Gingrich in the race," said Stuart Roy, an adviser to the Red, White and Blue Fund, a pro-Santorum super PAC. "That's why we're investing in Mississippi and Alabama. We can win, and a win in either state would show the need for Gingrich to leave."

To that end, the super PAC went on air with ad buys in both Mississippi and Alabama totaling more than a combined $1 million. Their spot goes after both Gingrich and Romney, whose numbers with Republicans in both states are judged to be, at a minimum, positive enough that he might be able to squeak by in one of the contests if his campaign were to compete aggressively.

Santorum seems to understand the importance of these states, which fall in the immediate wake of Super Tuesday.

"We have to do well in Kansas -- no, we have to win in Kansas, and win big," he said during a speech on Wednesday afternoon in Lenexa.

And he alluded to the need to dispatch Gingrich in a speech last night in Mississippi.  "If we win Mississippi, this will be a two-person race," Santorum told supporters in Jackson. "And if it is a two-person race, we will nominate a conservative as president of the United States."

In many ways, Romney has been the beneficiary of a not having had to face a single opponent during the primary who managed to rally conservatives. Gingrich and Santorum each traded opportunities as the chief conservative candidate, a fight which has allowed Romney to accrue a sizable enough delegate advantage that his campaign is now beginning to argue that he’s Romney is the inevitable Republican nominee.

Polls of two of the most competitive Super Tuesday states belie the argument that, if Gingrich were out of the race, Santorum might have enough support to beat Romney. The former Massachusetts governor won 43 "somewhat conservative" voters in the Ohio primary, but if Santorum's 33 percent share and Gingrich's 16 percent share were combined, Santorum would have the advantage. If Santorum and Gingrich were to add even together their share of the "moderate" vote in Ohio, they would have only trailed Romney by 2 percent in Ohio among moderates, who made up 1 in 5 Ohio primary voters.

And in Tennessee, a state which Santorum won but all three major candidates contested, just 43 percent of primary voters saw Romney as the candidate best suited to beat President Barack Obama in November. The voters apparently unconvinced of Romney's electability split between Santorum (25 percent) and Gingrich (21 percent).

That's all to assume, though, that Santorum would automatically inherit Gingrich voters if the former speaker were to leave the race. And it isn't clear, either, that Gingrich would necessarily offer his endorsement to Santorum -- a gesture that would presumably goad supporters of Gingrich to filter their energy his way.

Of course, any focus by Santorum to knock out Gingrich on Tuesday would be scuttled if both of them lose to Romney. A poll of likely voters in Tuesday's primary found Santorum leading, at 22.7 percent, followed by Romney at 18.7 percent and Gingrich at 13.8 percent. The Alabama State University poll was conducted, though, before Super Tuesday, and has a 4.4 percent margin of error.

Adding to that is the strategy pursued by a pro-Romney super PAC, which has not let up in its attacks against Santorum in advertising for Tuesday's two primaries.

That may be because Romney supporters view a divided conservative base as beneficial, at least until they can manage a stranglehold on the nomination.

"If he wins both states, he may well stay around," Roy said of Gingrich and the Tuesday states, highlighting the importance for Santorum in drawing the race into a one-on-one showdown against Romney come next Wednesday.

MONTGOMERY, AL -- Wins in both Alabama and Mississippi next week are essential for Newt Gingrich to stay credible in the 2012 presidential race, his campaign spokesman acknowledged Wednesday.

“A big win in Georgia kept us in the race. Big wins in Alabama and Mississippi will add even more fuel to the tank,” Gingrich campaign spokesman R.C. Hammond told reporters.

The former House Speaker himself continued to raise expectations in the Yellowhammer State.

“I believe Alabama has a major role to play in setting the stage for the presidential nomination,” Gingrich told the crowd here during his first event post-Super Tuesday where he only placed higher than third in one of eleven states.

While Gingrich is still running second in delegate count as of this morning, according to NBC News, with 111 delegates [Mitt Romney 339; Santorum 107], many people, including his competitors, question how he can continue on much longer without actually winning more states. The Speaker has only won South Carolina and Georgia.

The campaign feels it is so essential to focus on these two states, where voters take to the polls on March 13, that they will skip campaigning in Kansas.

After sending out a press schedule just yesterday with the subject line: “Newt and Callista Gingrich Announce Campaign Stops in Kansas,” Hammond told reporters Wednesday morning there has been a change in schedule.

“Gingrich," he said, "will be here in Alabama and Mississippi."

The former Speaker’s attendance at the six scheduled campaign appearances in all four of Kansas’s congressional districts have been cancelled, including a Newt 2012 Big 12 Tournament Basketball Watch Party.

The move to not campaign in Kansas, although the campaign says it will still utilize resources there, is in line with Gingrich’s Southern strategy.

“Everything from Spartanburg all the way to Texas, they all need to go for Gingrich,” Hammond said. 

Gingrich placed third in both the Tennessee and Oklahoma primaries Tuesday but has high hopes next week in Alabama and Mississippi.

AP Photo/Evan Vucci

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich speaks at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala.

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – As many voters across the country were casting votes in Super Tuesday States, Newt Gingrich was talking about space exploration in Rocket City, U.S.A.

“What we're in today is a launching pad -- this isn't the end state for the space program, this is the launching pad for the next phase of excitement and invention,” Gingrich told the several hundred people gathered at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center -- home of Space Camp.

The former House speaker, who is hoping to win big in Georgia Tuesday night and start to relaunch his presidential campaign, defended his dreams for America’s space program despite criticisms from his GOP rivals.

“I want to restate -- far from backing off -- I want to restate: America has a destiny in space,” Gingrich said. “It is a part of who we are. We are not going to back off from John Kennedy’s challenge and we are not going to go timidly into the night allowing the Chinese to dominate the future of space.”

While campaigning on Florida’s Space Coast late in January, Gingrich called for a creation of a colony on the moon by 2020. His comments resulted in some mockery by late night comedians and questions by people in his own party but the former speaker still choose to gave another speech on space the day 11 states cast votes in this tight Republican primary.

Gingrich spokesman, R.C. Hammond, told reporters he has one thing to say to all the “naysayers.”

“The same folks who mock Newt Gingrich for having vision in science, are the same people who don't want to cure cancer, the same people who are content to live with Alzheimer's, the same people who don't want to fix our public school systems, are the same people who look at a problem and say, 'Well, I can live with that, lets not worry about fixing that.' They're the same critics that created the tea party by turning the Republican Party away from it's actual values,” he said.

Hartselle, Alabama resident Mary Hatfield told NBC News she is leaning toward voting for Gingrich in the primary next week because of his “wealth of experience,” noting she is glad the speaker came to talk about space today.

“I think it should be a part of the discussion,” she said. “There are other things more crucial to our country right now, yes, but I think we have to be part of space exploration because someone is going to do it if we don’t.”

On Tuesday March 6, 11 states across the country -- Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, and Wyoming -- will hold contests that will award a combined 424 delegates. That’s more than any other one day this Republican primary season. Up until now, there have been 12 contests (in some form or fashion), with Mitt Romney winning seven of them, Rick Santorum four, Newt Gingrich one, and Ron Paul zero. NBC’s current delegate count stands at Romney 119, Gingrich 30, Santorum 17, Paul 8.

The GOP presidential candidates have different strategies and strongholds in these 11 contests. Romney hopes to lock down his home state of Massachusetts, Vermont, and Virginia (where only he and Paul are on the ballot). Santorum is expecting wins in Oklahoma and Tennessee. Gingrich has focused on his home state of Georgia. And Paul has concentrated on the caucuses in Alaska, Idaho, and North Dakota. The biggest prize is Ohio, where all the candidates -- except for Paul -- have campaigned. But more than anything else, Super Tuesday is a math race: Which candidate can rack up the most delegates from these 11 states? Note that many of these contests award delegates proportionally, so a second-place (or even third place) finish can get you delegates.

Click here to read the NBC News Super Tuesday Guide, complete with analysis of the candidates’ strategies, ad spending, candidate travel, history of Super Tuesday – when and why they’ve mattered, and a complete state-by-state breakdown of the delegates at stake, rules, procedures, poll opening and closing times, and full results so far.