Obama won Illinois, Minnesota, North Dakota, Kansas, Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Georgia and Utah, and he is leading in Missouri, while New Mexico remains too close to call.
As expected, Obama lost New York and Arkansas -- home states for Hillary, and though he also lost Massachusettes, New Jersey and California, he did so well in those states that the delegate loss is not going to be too bad and should be obviated by the wins in the next week -- Washington State, Louisisana, Nebraska, Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C.
Looking at delegates, the count so far is that Clinton won 471 delegates Tuesday to Obama's 437 (a difference of just 34), but the count is far from finished and some say Obama may end up winning more delegates than Hillary. We shall see. Since Obama was going in with more delegates than Hillary, and may pick up a few more delegates as results become clearer, and is certain to win six states in the week ahead, he should be a narrow front runner by this time next week.
While Hillary raised $13 million in January, Obama raises $32 million -- a clear sign that momentum and a ground war favor Obama, as does the rising number of women, whites and men who are voting for Obama. The only demographic group Hillary seems to "have" for now is Hispanics, and even here I expect Obama to begin to cut in quickly and deeply within the next few weeks.
Hillary is now calling for weekly debates, which is the kind of thing you do when you are short on money and cannot compete head-to-head in paid media with your opponent. It is not the kind of thing you do when you are winnnig.
Since no one reports the important races, let me do that: Hillary won the American Samoa caucus which had a record-shattering 285 caucus-goers. Clinton got 163 votes and Barack Obama 121 (one person voted for Mike Gravel), which means Hillary will get two caucus votes and Obama one. If you do not think this is important, then you are not Rudy Giuliani, who spent $50 million for his one caucus vote.
.
5 comments:
Minnesota is a caucus state, and the straw poll results are meaningless.
The delegates selected yesterday will meet in BPOU conventions over the n ext month to select delegates to the state endorsing conventions, which will be held on May 29-31 and June 6-8.
It won't be until then that we'll know which delegates will be attending the national conventions, or who they'll be pledged for.
True for Republicans, but not for Democrats.
The GOP's caucus is a straw poll and not a binding event, but Minnesota's 72 Democratic delegates are to be allocated proportionally based on a candidate's showing in the binding preference ballot. See >> http://www.startribune.com/opinion/editorials/15331896.html
In Minnesota (where less 5 percent of the population is black), Obama got 67% of the vote and will pick up 48 delegates as compared to 24 for Hillary.
Go Barack!
P.
I'm in California and was surprised by the initial returns in the primary. The polls had been showing the California Democratic primary too close to call, but the initial returns had Clinton more than 20 percentage points ahead of Obama. What gives?
The pundits are speculating about Clinton's support among Latinos and white women, a late surge of support for her, etc. I think this misses a key factor.
Early in the night during the vote counting, Edwards and Giuliani were each getting about 10% of the votes in their respective primaries in California. That is way high compared to other Super Tuesday states for a couple of guys who had previously dropped out of the race. Apparently we were seeing the mail in votes being counted first. Californians have been voting for weeks, and the mail in votes will reflect voter preferences from the past few weeks ago.
As the night wore on, the percentages for Edwards and Guiliani gradually dropped in half. The mail in voters were getting diluted by those who voted at the polls, and naturally the latter reflected far fewer votes for candidates who had since withdrawn from the race.
Interestingly, as the mail in votes got diluted by Super Tuesday votes in California, Clinton's cumulative margin over Obama decreased from more than 20 percentage points to 10 percentage points.
What's it mean?
Clinton won the mail in California Democratic voters overwhelmingly. That’s not surprising as she had huge leads in the California polls 1-3+ weeks ago when mail in voters sent in their ballots.
The votes cast on Super Tuesday for Obama and Clinton were probably much closer than the final tally reflects, reflecting Obama's surge in support over the past week.
I would like to see a breakdown of Super Tuesday vs. mail in votes. I suspect it will show that Obama still has the momentum.
I think your analysis is perfect and 100% correct.
Something like 40 percent of the California votes were mail in and they tracked for a period back when no one had yet heard Obama, and before Hillary went negative. Basically, it's a name recognition vote.
Here's an odd thing that bears watching, however: The intitial numbers I am seeing in California are not tracking right: the Hispanic vote is about twice what it should be based on the last election, and the black vote is LOWER than the last election. I am not saying there is a problem yet (let's wait unitl it all gets counted), but I have questions about this data aberration. It may be a hiccup. If it's something else, however it's VERY bad.
P
Registered independents in California encountered some problems yesterday. The primary rules this year allowed independents to vote in the Democratic primary but not in the Republican primary. For an independent to vote in the Democratic primary, the voter had to specifically request a Democratic ballot AND check off a bubble somewhere on the ballot that says they are voting Democratic.
Apparently some poll workers did not understand the rules. Some refused to give Democratic ballots to independents who requested them. This probably hurt Obama more than Clinton, since he appeals to independents more. I don't know how widespread it was.
Even fewer poll workers or voters understood anything about the "bubble" on the Democratic ballot that independents needed to check saying that they are voting Democratic. This seems quite unnecessary since the very fact that an independent was voting on a Democratic ballot would accomplish this declaration. I don't know if all CA counties made this strange requirement of independents voting Democratic, or if it was only some of them. This probably invalided more Obama votes than Clinton votes.
In other cases, precincts were running out of Democratic ballots. Things got so bad in Alameda County that a judge ordered that polls stay open until 10 pm while poll workers scrambled to get additional ballots made. Obama won in Alameda County. http://vote.ss.ca.gov/Returns/pres/dem/01.htm
Parts of my own county were also running low on Democratic ballots by early afternoon, before the evening voting rush, and quickly had more ballots printed.
I don't know why they didn't just plan for enough Democratic ballots for all registered Dems AND independents. Since independents were shut out of the GOP primary this time it stands to reason that many were going to want to vote Democratic since that was allowed.
Post a Comment