The 2020 Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary left us with a tied race for the Democratic nomination for president. Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg are running neck-in-neck after just two contests.

So it’s on to the two states voting third and fourth. The western state of Nevada holds caucuses Saturday. One week later, on Saturday, Feb. 29, the southern state of South Carolina stages a primary election.

This special one-state-at-a-time voting pattern ends at that point. On Tuesday, March 3, political party rules allow any state to vote, and a large number of states will participate in a caucuses/primary free-for-all known as Super Tuesday (one of those states is Colorado).

Nevada and South Carolina gained these coveted special positions in 2008 on orders from the national Democratic Party. There were many complaints that the first two states to vote – Iowa and New Hampshire – were predominantly white and middle class and did not adequately represent the many minority voters in the United States.

There also were objections that Iowa and New Hampshire going first were leaving large geographical regions of the United States out of the early caucuses/primary voting. Iowa was in the Midwest and New Hampshire in New England. But what about the middle Atlantic states, the South, the Rocky Mountain states, and the west coast states?

To rectify both the minorities issue and the geography problem, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) ordered up stand-alone caucuses in Nevada and a stand-alone Democratic primary for South Carolina. Nevada has a significant number of Hispanic voters and, at the same time, is a western state (almost, but not quite, on the west coast). South Carolina has a large percentage of African-American voters and is a typical southern state.

Nevada and South Carolina were very fortunate. Iowa and New Hampshire political leaders had worked hard to make their states extra influential in the presidential nominating process by maneuvering them into early voting positions in the primary/caucuses sweepstakes. Iowa created a caucuses rather than a primary to get ahead of New Hampshire. New Hampshire passed a law stipulating its presidential primary would be in front of any other state’s.

But Nevada and South Carolina political leaders did not have to lift a finger to get in preferred position. The Democratic National Committee did all their work for them by simply issuing a new party rule.

Nevada going third and South Carolina going fourth is one of the newer wrinkles in the presidential nominating process in the United States. The rule was put into effect in 2008 and has only been in use twice since – in 2012 and 2016. The new rule was most important in 2008 when an African-American, Barack Obama, was running for the Democratic nomination against Hillary Clinton. As expected, South Carolina’s African-American voters gave Obama strong support.

We are anticipating that Nevada and South Carolina will be significant in the Democratic Party presidential nomination caucuses/primaries this year. With Sanders and Buttigieg having virtually tied in Iowa and New Hampshire, it is Nevada and South Carolina voters who will have the first shot at determining whether it will be Sanders or Buttigieg who will get an additional boost for the 2020 Democratic nomination. Contributing to this scenario is that there are no Hispanic or African-American candidates left in the race to benefit from Nevada’s Hispanic voters and South Carolina’s African-American constituency.

There is another possible role for Nevada and South Carolina. One or the other might surprise observers by strongly supporting, and thus rescuing the candidacy of, one of the candidates who did not do well in Iowa/New Hampshire, such as Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden or Amy Klobuchar. And then there is former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who will enter the race for the first time on Super Tuesday.

This we do know: Because there was no clear winner in Iowa and New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina are going to be very important this time out. Their voters have significant votes to cast with an important decision to be made between Sanders and Buttigieg.

Colorado used to be one of three states in third position in the presidential caucuses primaries lineup (where Nevada is now). The other two states were Maryland and Georgia.

It happened in 1992. The Democratic National Committee opened up the Tuesday after New Hampshire and those three states grabbed the open slots. Colorado voted for California Gov. Jerry Brown, Maryland voted for Massachusetts Sen. Paul Tsongas, and Georgia voted for the eventual White House winner, Bill Clinton.

Think how important Colorado would be right now if our political leaders had held on to that third spot. Coloradans, and not Nevadans, would be voting third and starting to make that big choice between Sanders and Buttigieg – or perhaps reviving a different candidate’s struggling campaign.

Tom Cronin and Bob Loevy are retired political scientists at Colorado College and have written extensively on presidential elections.