March 4 primary discussion and results

[The Original Nex]

Getting a little worried here...I just read that some polls out yesterday and this morning are showing Hillary climbing back in front in Texas and Ohio.

The media reports polls as gospel. Nearly all of them are within the margin of error and are therefore useless crap for getting actual info. Even for those that are outside the margin, late hour polls are notorious for being inaccurate and getting poor samples. Take late hour polls as well as polls within the margin of error with prodigious grains of salt.

Any poll that says "Hillary up 47-44" is shit. Obama could just as well be up 48-43 if the margin of error is ~3.7%.

[SirNitram]

I prefer the way Countdown reports them; adding the margin of error plus the number of voters who declared 'undecided'. The result can wobble either way by that combined number(skirting 10% in all of the recent ones) without invoking the 5% failure.

[Civil War Man]

Well, we can all be sure now that Obama will get at least one vote in Rhode Island. I should know. I was there.

[Knife]

I forgot to add that the primaries were a perfect example of this, as the conservatives were unable to unite behind a single candidate, thus leaving the opening for McCain, who while attracting the neocon Iraq vote, didn't have significant drawing power for the Jesus freaks, the libertarian wing, traditional paleocons, and so on.

I disagree. Granted, Huckabee took enough away from Romney that he couldn't win, however at the point he withdrew he was way ahead of Huckabee. Sure they didn't UNITE behind Romney or Huckabee but neither were they equal. Romney was quite ahead of Huckabee when he decided to call it quits.

What McCain did from was support from independents, crossover voters, the 'moderate' wing, and the business wing.

Indeed, the other wings of the GOP that aren't the bible thumpers. Many people like to think the GOP was the bible thumpers, they are wrong. For two decades the 'silent majority' held their nose and voted for the bible thumpers since they held

However, McCain damn well knows that he needs the Jesus freaks if for no other reason that they provide the GOP with the same 'boots on the ground' canvassing volunteers that Unions do for the Democrats.

I dont think so, but sure.

That's why he's pandering to the religious wing right now.

Sure he's pandering to them because they do indeed have a network and they do indeed represent a voting block. I just disagree that he actually needs them.

[Fire Fly]

And....Obama and McCain take Vermont according to CNN.

[Chris OFarrell]

Dito Sky News over here.

[Frank Hipper]

Local news has Clinton winning with 52% to Obama's 46% here in Ohio, and that with a remarkable 0% of precincts reporting in...how the fuck they're managing that one is beyond me.

[Macunaima]

Local news has Clinton winning with 52% to Obama's 46% here in Ohio, and that with a remarkable 0% of precincts reporting in...how the fuck they're managing that one is beyond me.

Isn't that exit-polls based?

[Surlethe]

Local news has Clinton winning with 52% to Obama's 46% here in Ohio, and that with a remarkable 0% of precincts reporting in...how the fuck they're managing that one is beyond me.

I'm monitoring MSNBC's website. They called Obama in Vermont with 0% of the precincts reporting in and a smaller margin than that, so I'm wondering why they haven't called Ohio for Clinton.

[irishmick79]

They called Vermont early because the exit polling showed decisive margins in favor of Obama, well outside the margins of error. Not exactly surprising - I live in Burlington, and Obama has enjoyed substantial support here. They're probably not calling Ohio yet because the exit polling is within the margins of error. And I just heard that some polls in Ohio are still open because ballot shortages are being reported....

[Mr Bean]

My heart skipped for a second when I saw MSNBC reporting Obama winning Texas 63%-37% until I saw the 0% of 0% reporting tag.

[Surlethe]

They called Vermont early because the exit polling showed decisive margins in favor of Obama, well outside the margins of error. Not exactly surprising - I live in Burlington, and Obama has enjoyed substantial support here. They're probably not calling Ohio yet because the exit polling is within the margins of error. And I just heard that some polls in Ohio are still open because ballot shortages are being reported....

MSNBC now has Clinton 62%, Obama 36%. Are the errors on exit polls more than 13%?

[D.Turtle]

If you look at the Ohio Exit Poll on cnn.com, you get numbers of 51% for Clinton, 48 % for Obama. Unfortunately they don't show the MoE.

I would guess that 51-48 is within the MoE.

Some counties are still voting (again) in Ohio, because some counties ran out of ballots. Which means no more results for some time.

They don't have the Texas Exit Poll up yet (probably because there is still voting going on in El Paso).

The results in Texas are most probably mostly the results from early voting. (currently 56-43 Obama-Clinton with 1% in).

Vermont is clearly Obamas. The question at the moment is if he can get 64%, because that would give him a 10-5 win instead of 9-6.

[D.Turtle]

MSNBC now has Clinton 62%, Obama 36%. Are the errors on exit polls more than 13%?

The results that they show are the official numbers so far.

IIf you look at this page on CNN.com you can see that the results in Ohio are from a total of 14k votes so far. In other words meaningless. Like I said above, the extended polls close in 15 minutes, at which time more results will come in from Ohio.

[Patrick Degan]

So far, it's looking like Obama wins Vermont but Ohio is too close to call:

Democratic race too close to call in Ohio
Obama wins Vermont for 12th straight victory, according to NBC projections
Jim Young / Reuters


NBC News projected early Tuesday evening that Ohio’s critical Democratic presidential primary was too close to call, but it projected that Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois had defeated Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York in Vermont for his 12th straight victory.

Vermont’s delegates to the Democratic National Convention will be apportioned later based on the size of Obama’s win. Going into Tuesday’s balloting in Rhode Island, Vermont, Ohio and Texas, Obama led Clinton by 1,194-1,037, according to NBC News’ count.

In all, there were 370 Democratic delegates at stake Tuesday night, most of them in Ohio and Texas, where Clinton hoped to stem Obama’s momentum.

Meanwhile, Sen. John McCain of Arizona won the Ohio and Vermont Republican primaries, moving closer to clinching his party’s presidential nomination, NBC News projected.

Ohio results unclear amid confusion
A clear picture of Ohio’s Democratic verdict was likely to be delayed well into the evening. Election officials described turnout across the state as “astounding,” and a judge ordered that the polls would open in Sandusky County until 9 p.m. ET after the county ran out of paper ballots.

Obama representatives, meanwhile, asked a judge to keep voting booths open in Cuyahoga County, in the Cleveland area, because of a shortage of ballots. All of the state’s Election boards were asked not to report any results until after 9 p.m. because of the requests, NBC affiliate WCMH of Columbus reported.

Balloting was described as confusing across the state, where election workers anticipated a record turnout across the state. At the same time, areas were using new or unfamiliar methods to tabulate votes after the turmoil of the 2000 election.

Election officials weren’t predicting how long it might take to count the votes, but they said it could last into Wednesday.

Just a few weeks ago, Clinton had a strong lead in Ohio’s polls, and her campaign expected the state to work as a bulwark against Obama’s string of victories that gained momentum on Super Tuesday.

Final polls going into Tuesday’s voting showed he had closed the margin significantly, but surveys of voters as they left their polling places indicated Clinton was winning robust support from groups that have been the foundation of her candidacy, taking strong margins among white, blue collar and older voters.

Early results from the exit polls showed that Obama was not doing as well as he had in recent contests in eroding her support from those groups. Clinton also was doing a bit better than Obama among Ohio voters who chose their candidate in recent days, suggesting that she may have benefited from her aggressive attacks on what she called his lack of seasoning.

Obama sounds upbeat message
Obama sounded a confident note Tuesday, however, saying that regardless of the night’s outcome, he had a comfortable enough lead in delegates that Clinton would need blowout wins to get back in contention.

“You know, what my head tells me is that we’ve got a very sizable delegate lead that is going to be hard to overcome,” he said on a campaign flight Tuesday to San Antonio.

“You’ll recall that when we were winning those 11 races in a row, the theory was that they had to blow us out of Texas and Ohio, and I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

Obama said Clinton’s more aggressive advertising in recent weeks had backfired on her by creating “turbulence” in the minds of voters.

“I mean, we were 20 points behind a couple weeks ago, you know,” he said. “Now we’re in a virtual dead heat. Just remember where we were and where we’ve been.”

[D.Turtle]

John McCain most probably has a clean sweep, securing the GOP nomination. Even a miracle can't help Huckabee anymore.

Looking at the Rhode Island Exit Poll you get Clinton at 51.5 % and Obama at 47.5 %. Again, no MoE, but it could be close (which is extremely bad for Clinton).

Currently it looks like a clear win for Obama in Vermont and close wins in all three other states. This probably means Obama will win the delegate count in Texas (even if he loses the total popular result). This means Clinton will not be able to close the delegate count a lot (maybe even lose the delegate count from this day).

Basically, she is finished. The question is, if she loses with such a margin that she is forced to quit, or if she can throw together some kind of argument to keep on running.

If she keeps on running, it will be a joke, just like Huckabee staying in was a joke.

[Civil War Man]

Basically, she is finished. The question is, if she loses with such a margin that she is forced to quit, or if she can throw together some kind of argument to keep on running.

MSNBC just called Rhode Island for Clinton. I would have thought they'd be smarter than that.

Anyway, at this point, I think she could be buried under Obama delegates and still refuse to concede.

[acesand8s]

Huckabee just dropped out.

So now the Republicans can start preparing for November while the Democratic infighting continues.

[Frank Hipper]

Local news has Clinton winning with 52% to Obama's 46% here in Ohio, and that with a remarkable 0% of precincts reporting in...how the fuck they're managing that one is beyond me.

Isn't that exit-polls based?

It was on a crawler without any clarification; an exit poll certainly seems obvious...now.

[Crossroads Inc.]

So it looks like Ohio is going to Clinton which means, no mater whatr happens in Texas, she's going to declare victory and no doubt continue going all the way into July...

[Darth Wong]

Obama was probably hurt in Ohio by the recent news leak that some Obama staffer had confided to Canadian trade officials that Obama's threat to tear up NAFTA was nothing more than campaign posturing (never mind the fact that Clinton's identical threat is almost certainly the same thing).

That could have really hurt him in a state where most of the population believes in creationism and is so fucking stupid that they actually think America's economic woes can be solved by withdrawing from NAFTA.

[Vehrec]

Mike, the intelligent people in Ohio would like for you to stop making blanket statements that include all 10 of us.

[J]

Obama was probably hurt in Ohio by the recent news leak that some Obama staffer had confided to Canadian trade officials that Obama's threat to tear up NAFTA was nothing more than campaign posturing (never mind the fact that Clinton's identical threat is almost certainly the same thing).

That could have really hurt him in a state where most of the population believes in creationism and is so fucking stupid that they actually think America's economic woes can be solved by withdrawing from NAFTA.

I'd love to see what happens if NAFTA is annulled, and along with it the proportionality clause for oil & gas exports. Losing their largest source of energy imports will surely do wonders for the US economy.

[Mayabird]

It seems that God doesn't like Mike Huckabee and failed to give him the mathematical miracle he was asking for. And so,

Na na na na!
Na na na na!
Hey, hey, hey!
Goodbye!


So what's the deal with Rhode Island anyway? Is the state filled with old people who drank too much coffee syrup?

[Cairber]

bah, Hillary just took a small lead in texas.