Obama appears to have cruised to South Carolina victory

January 26, 2008

The polls in South Carolina closed at 7 pm. By about 7:01 pm, news outlets felt comfortable calling the race.

Barack Obama routed Hillary Rodham Clinton in the racially-charged South Carolina primary Saturday night, regaining campaign momentum in the prelude to a Feb. 5 coast-to-coast competition for more than 1,600 Democratic National Convention delegates.

Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina was running third, a sharp setback in the state where he was born and scored a primary victory in his first presidential campaign four years ago.

The Associated Press made its call based on surveys of voters as they left the polls.

About half the voters were black, according to polling place interviews, and four out of five of them supported Obama. Black women turned out in particularly large numbers. Clinton and Edwards each won roughly 40 percent of the white vote, with about 25 percent going to Obama, the first-term Illinois senator.

More soon.

Ya gotta love it. At 7:00 the polls close, at 7:01 ABC decides the contest. I know the ratings game matters more than reason — or responsibility, but at this rate the different services will start competing for the seconds (at 7:00:01, CNN calls the election for—). Do these broadcasting twits really think it matters, or that anyone really cares?

  • Clinton and Edwards each won roughly 40 percent of the white vote, with about 25 percent going to Obama

    No wonder Obama won – Clinton and Edwards already had 80% of the white vote and Obama still managed to get 25%! 🙂

  • I was just settling in for some internet fueled speculation and prediction (no cable at my place). Eventhough I voted for Obama today, I’m kind disappointed that there is no suspense.

  • 2100 votes were in and they called it?

    Exit polls must have shown a substantial margin. I think folks may be blown away at how much of a margin.

  • Wait! I’m flabbergasted! Obama wins SC! No Shit! We were all in such suspense and now CNN has gone out on a limb and projected Obama the winner. Maybe they are the best political reporters around. Great stuff! HA!

    Now> Can we get on with please.

  • Edwards seems to be doing well enough to still have a significant impact on the remaining primaries.

  • #1, #4: Sure, it’s pretty darned quick to call it. But what’s the harm? The only possible victims of the rush are the networks themselves, if they get it wrong. I can’t see how it effects the actual race if they call it at 8:45pm rather than 7:01pm. Why the surprise and outrage?

  • If Edwards comes in third he may as well hang it up. I’d be an Edwards voter on Super Tuesday if I thought he had some realistic chance, but since he doesn’t I’ll be voting Obama. I can’t be the only one thinking this way.

  • I was watching CNN with a friend just as the polls closed and saw them call the race for Obama and he asked “how can they do that? How do they know?” and I had to explain to him about exit polling and point out to him that while they projected Obama winning they (CNN) didn’t say by how much. The news services have been doing exit polling all day and have been collating all that. As soon as the polls closed they could start reporting what they had determined based on that. I was surprised at the all the detail CNN had in their exit poll brakdown and it’ll be interesting to see how that matches up with the final results.

  • I’d be an Edwards voter on Super Tuesday if I thought he had some realistic chance, but since he doesn’t I’ll be voting Obama. I can’t be the only one thinking this way. -jimBOB

    From some of the analysis of the exit polling I’ve done, I would wager that people who split from Edwards will break nearly evenly for Obama and Clinton, 60% abd 40% respectively.

    Trippi has really been pushing Edwards as the ‘kingmaker’ in the convention, so I’m curious if Edwards will still retain the lion’s share of his 10%-20% support in a lot of the Super Duper Tuesday polls.

    I think if he maintains at least 20% in South Carolina, a lot of his supporters will stick with him. If he falls below that, I think he’ll lose a lot of support as people coalesce around Obama and Clinton.

  • CNN says that 77,000 votes is 15% of the precincts. That means that over 500,000 people voted. Compare that to the 290,000 in 2004.

  • it’ll be interesting to see how that matches up with the final results.

    While some networks are calling it a “substantial” victory, AP is calling it a “rout.” That would suggest a larger margin than the 10 percent or so pre-balloting polls were suggesting.

    Nautilator: that’s a percentage of precincts, not of voters

  • CNN says that 77,000 votes is 15% of the precincts. -Nautilator

    Half a million voters would be nice, but 15% of precincts doesn’t equate to 15% of the population. Some precincts have more people than others.

  • Trippi has really been pushing Edwards as the ‘kingmaker’ in the convention,

    It’s not really clear to me why I, a potential Edwards voter, would want him as kingmaker. Do I know he’d throw his kingmaking weight to the candidate I’d prefer? What would he be trying to get in exchange for that support? Would it be something I care about? Would whatever Edwards be asking for be so good that it would trump the damage that would come to the Democrats in having their first brokered convention in decades (thus giving the eventual nominee that much less time to prepare, and making the Dems look generally disorganized)? This “make me a kingmaker” talk just looks self-serving to me.

  • This “make me a kingmaker” talk just looks self-serving to me. -jimBOB

    Oh, don’t get me wrong; I completely agree that Edwards would do more harm than good staying in. I’d prefer it if he dropped out now and endorsed Obama. I think that would seal the deal.

    I’m just not necessarily sure that’s what would happen, if Edwards gets more than 20% of the South Carolina vote.

  • If you figure on around 400,000 (I saw some predictions yesterday around 350k), half black, and pre-election polling had Obama around 80% of the black vote – so lets say 75-20-5 (O-C-E), and for the non-black vote 20-40-40 (O-C-E) you’d have a final result around Obama 47.5 Clinton 30 Edwards 22.5, so it is certainly possible Obama would well exceed the 10% range of most of the final polls.

  • Anyone tuning in to the middle of Bill’s speech might get the wrong idea about which Clinton is running for office.

  • I have to say, I am kinda disturbed by headlines mentioning things like “cruising to victory” (sorry, Carpetbagger…) or an “easy win” like Reuters termed it.

    This is looking like it is heading towards a blow-out victory by a huge margin by Obama, but the headlines are already skewed to downplay it– in part, using the high amount of Black voters as, essentially, an ‘excuse’ for Obama’s win.

    Heck, one really funny comment in the articles right now is that “After two consecutive losses, in New Hampshire and Nevada, Obama badly needed a win on Saturday”— uh-huh, so narrow losses in New Hampshire and Nevada are only being equalled, and not massively surpassed, by a blow-out victory in S.C.?

  • As a (disappointed) Edwards proponent from the beginning, I hope he’ll hang in there long enough to push the winner a little bit toward his positions, especially the interests of working class Democrats.

    I still believe Edwards is better on the issues, that Hillary and Obama are somewhat “safe” celebrities due to superficial factors of gender and race, but I have at last given up hope of his going any further.

    Since I can’t stand the the Clintons it’s Obama, Obama, Obama!

  • taking a quick look at the demographics, another interesting data point is that the ratio of 30-44 yr old voters to 60+ voters was very different here than NH and NV where Obama lost. The 60+ vote was a much smaller proportion here, and it looks like the 30-44 voters came out better (a little more like Iowa).

    (doubtful, i think sometimes Bill may get the wrong idea about which Clinton is running for office. . .)

  • Obama and Romney are both honest men who have had dishonest attacks placed against them. McCain just falsely accused Romney of proposing or supporting a time line to get out of Iraq. Fact checking proves McCain’s accusation blatantly false. McCain speaks with a politician’s forked tongue. Obama and Romney have both been victims of push polling and slams against their faith. If we have an Obama / Romneontest in the fall, at least it will be a clean contest.

  • hey Norma, thanks for the levity!
    oh. . . you weren’t joking?

    Romney has run more negative spots than any other candidate on either side. He has savaged nearly every one of his opponents at one time or another.

    There would be nothing clean about an Obama – Romney contest.

  • Related to the ongoing conversation… Exit polls: Bill Clinton’s effect

    Roughly 6 in 10 South Carolina Democratic primary voters said Bill Clinton’s campaigning was important in how they ultimately decided to vote, and of those voters, 48 percent went for Barack Obama while only 37 percent went for Hillary Clinton. Fourteen percent of those voters voted for John Edwards

    Meanwhile, the exit polls also indicate Obama easily beat Clinton among those voters who decided in the last three days — when news reports heavily covered the former president’s heightened criticisms of Obama. Twenty percent of South Carolina Democrats made their decision in the last three days and 51 percent of them chose Obama, while only 21 percent picked Clinton.

  • Norma– Romney has switched almost every principled position which he has ever held in order to run for the republican nomination… Not that I see that as a bad thing! After all, a person who can be bought like that is generally much less of a danger than, say, the current occupant, who believes that he has a mandate from God…

    But calling him ‘honest’ is kind of a stretch…

  • How absurd is it that CNN is doing commentary from Mr. Morality, Bill Bennett on a feed from Nevada? I wish we could hear the slot machines in the background. They can’t be too far away.

  • The extremely quick reporting of the winner tonight concerned me because if they called it for Obama and it turned out to be wrong, dred would settle on the Obama campaign.

  • So, regardless of whether precincts have the same number of people in them (I assumed that they did, or at least roughly evened out to), with 95% of precincts reporting in, 500,271 votes have been cast. That’s pretty impressive.

  • That’s pretty impressive. -Nautilator

    It sure is. In this case, I’m happy you were right.

  • Tonight, the citizens of South Carolina stood and fired upon the stone-walled bastion of the status quo.

    No—not Fort Sumter—Fortress Clinton.

  • So far Obama has shown harmony of the home where children dwell. I give him full credit for that. “THE STRENGTH OF A NATION DERIVES FROM THE INTEGRITY OF THE HOME.” He has shown grace under the Clinton attacks, and I give him credit for that. “The object of the superior man is truth.” And Obama has shown faith in unity, kindness, and peace. “He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the North Star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it.”

    The Clintons are a feather of disgrace, lies, hate, attacks, and greed, and will do anything at all cost to secure self-gain. In fact, they already started mass destruction without nuclear weapon – TEACHING THE YOUNG GENERATION HOW TO LIE, HATE, ATTACK, AND DO ANYTHING AT ALL COST TO SECURE SELF-GAIN.

    Let”s give Obama the fresh air our votes! YES WE CAN HAVE A UNITED, CARING, AND HOPEFUL COUNTRY!

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