There was a very small chance that the race for the Democratic nomination would effectively end this evening, in the event of an Obama upset. That’s clearly not the case — Clinton will win Pennsylvania. As of now, with 45% of precincts reporting, her lead is about eight points.
This means, of course, that the race will continue, as expected.
Consider this an overnight open thread for everyone to weigh in on the results. The floor is yours….
The reason the Democrats are so passionately undecided is that their last best chance for a candidate to energize the party left when Michael Bloomberg decided not to run.
Exit polls from Crooks and Liars, here are some other interesting Clinton > Obama stats from exit polls:
$200,000 or more (8%) 40% 60%
High school graduate or less (28%) 62% 38%
High school graduate (24%) 64% 36%
College graduate (20%) 48% 52%
Postgraduate study (26%) 51% 49%
Before January 2008, what was your voter registration status in Pennsylvania? Were you:
Registered as a Democrat (87%) 56% 44%
Registered as a Republican (5%) 46% 54%
Which ONE of these four candidate qualities mattered most in deciding how you voted today? (CHECK ONLY ONE)
Can bring about needed change (50%) 31% 69%
Cares about people like me (13%) 56% 44%
Has the right experience (26%) 94% 6%
Has the best chance to win in November (9%) 56% 44%
Did either of these candidates for president attack the other unfairly?
Only Hillary Clinton did (24%) 10% 90%
Only Barack Obama did (6%) 81% 19%
Both did (44%) 65% 35%
Neither did (24%) 70% 30%
(Only Obama???????)
In deciding your vote for president today, was the gender of the candidate:
Important (20%) 71% 29%
Not important (79%) 49% 51%
In deciding your vote for president today, was the gender of the candidate:
Men who say gender was a factor (6%) 58% 42%
Men who say gender was not a factor (34%) 47% 53%
Women who say gender was a factor (14%) 77% 23%
Women who say gender was not a factor (44%) 51% 49%
In deciding your vote for president today, was the race of the candidate:
Important (19%) 59% 41%
Not important (80%) 53% 47%
In deciding your vote for president today, was the race of the candidate:
Whites who say race was a factor (13%) 75% 25%
Whites who say race was not a factor (66%) 58% 42%
Blacks who say race was a factor (4%) – –
Blacks who say race was not a factor (9%) 9% 91%
All other races (5%) 52% 48%
If Obama can pull a little closer he might seize more delegates because he’s leading in traditionally Democratic parts of the state which receive more delegates to the convention.
If Clinton can pull a little farther away she’ll have better bragging rights.
As it is, the results are inconclusive, and I expect the race to go to Puerto Rico.
with 58% reporting, HRC is ahead by 10%.. I wonder how Obama’s campaign will spin this as a win for him.
I’m sure that all of the Repubs that switched to Democrats for the primaries will vote for Sen OBama in the GE.
Thanks MsJoanne,
So Barack wins cross-over Republicans (stuff that one Rush).
Interesting that Barack wins college graduates with BAs but Hillary wins post-graduate studies.
9:24pm ET: Fox “News” confirms e-voting problems.
While MSNBC was said to have reported earlier that PA’s SoS claimed there were no reports of problems today (see the 6:34pm ET update below), it was Fox “News” of all outlets who bothered to confirm and briefly report the problems.
Just after the polls closed tonight, as the Exit Polls were “too close to call”, and too important to share with us mere mortals, the cable news nets were beside themselves with the prospect of having to actually wait for votes to be “counted”. In truth, very few of them can actually be counted because, as we explained yesterday, most of PA uses e-voting machines on which it’s strictly impossible to determine if even a single vote was recorded as any voter actually intended.
It was Fox then, who confirmed some of the problems we’ve been reporting all day here.
“Some of those electronic voting machines did not work,” says the Fox reporter in the clip below, describing the process of “cartridges” being brought in for counting. She mentions that there were paper ballots where machine broke down (though as we noted in earlier reports below, provisional ballots were only handed out if both machines in voting precincts broke down), which, she said, would have to be counted “the old fashioned way”. Cue (literally) Fox eye roll.
10:50am ET: Both machines break down, 100’s leave without voting, Obama’s name not on provisional ballot! From Philly Inquirer/Daily News PA Primary Blog…
We continue to hear reports of broken machines. This tale was reported to the Daily News by a very patient voter:
“I just came from voting. Finally got my vote in at 49 ward, 07 division….after waiting for (the only) 2 voting machines to be repaired.
“I was able to cast my vote for Obama after waiting 1 and 1/2 hours. During that time at least 100 voters left without voting…..possibly not to return.
“I immediately called every News channel I could get through to. Persons who answered at the stations informed me that my ward was not the only one with broken machines and ‘Paper ballots (as an alternative) without Obama’s name on it. These provisional ballots did have Hiliary’s [sic] name on them.”
Obama lost PA, but I think Hillary officially lost the nomination tonight.
A popular vote win is now officially out of reach for her. At 61% reporting, Hillary is only ahead by about 115,000 votes. She needed a blowout, and she didn’t get it.
Obama will win NC and is favored in IN, so there are no more big states for Hillary to win, certainly not by the sorts of margins she needs to close the popular vote gap. Obama will wipe out her popular vote gain with NC, and in two weeks she’ll probably be even further behind in pledged delegates. Obama will end this race ahead in pledged delegates, states won, and the popular vote.
Hillary will soldier on, like hard headed machine that she is, but she’s DONE.
Barack Obama remains the strongest candidate to face John McCain. Here’s a good summary of some reasons to consider supporting Obama: http://acropolisreview.com/2008/04/top-reasons-to-give-barack-obama-your.html
Share the summary with undecided friends in North Carolina and Indiana.
Ooops, I lied. The exit polls are from: http://election.cbsnews.com/campaign2008/exitPoll.shtml?state=PA&race=P&jurisdiction=0&party=D
Which was a referral from C&L. My bad.
The spread — in favour of Clinton — continues to get bigger and is now at about 10% (NYT). The map looks like it’s all Hillary country, with tiny Obama islands. Still nothing to brag about compared to the 20% lead she had scant few weeks ago, but…. He has poured *tons* of money as well as energy into PA, and hasn’t got enough return for it, so it’s gotta sting. He’s likely to win NC in at least the same proportion, to salve the PA wound, though, with little (if any) pledged delegate loss overall.
Indiana is likely to be more “telling” than it has ever dreamt to be 🙂
From the NYT’s Caucus:
11:05 p.m. | Milking It: Our colleague Michael Luo, who’s keeping track of the money in this campaign, tells us that Clinton officials are saying they are experiencing their best
night ever in fund-raising online, bringing in well over $1 million in
the two hours since she was declared the winner.
11 p.m. | Counting: We just checked in with elections officials in Chester County, where only 72 of 224 precincts have reported. They say they had a huge turnout and were still getting calls _ it’s 11 p.m.! _ from officials at various polling places about how to handle provisional ballots. “They’re still at the polls wrapping things up,” said a worker at election HQ in West Chester. The Web site (www.chesco.org/election) is also really slow.
10:51 p.m. | Tit-for-Tat: Mr. Obama takes on Senator McCain in a big way. This is what he says first off, after congratulating Senator Clinton for her win tonight: “After 14 long months, it’s easy to forget this from time to time – to lose sight of the fierce urgency of this moment.
“It’s easy to get caught up in the distractions and the silliness and the tit-for-tat that consumes our politics; the bickering that none of us are entirely immune to, and that trivializes the profound issues – two wars, an economy in recession, a planet in peril, issues that confront our nation.”
Re the 10:51 entry… “[…] after congratulating Senator Clinton for her win tonight […]”.
Funny… I can’t remember the last time Sen. Clinton extended the same courtesy to Sen. Obama. Re 11:05 entry… Time to contribute to our next president again?
I’m sitting here in PA (Pittsburgh to be exact). If I hadn’t met so many people over the last week or so who were so woefully uninformed, I’d feel better tonight. But, most people that saw my Obama pin and asked about it were just, well, truly not well informed. I won’t even say it all went in one direction, though I’ll admit that Obama supporter misinformation didn’t grate quite as much.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve explained the no lobbyist no PAC thing to confused people.
I can’t tell you how many people seemed to be voting for a familiar brand name not on any actual knowledge. I think a lot of people were starting to waver, but got to the polls and just went with the familiar. It’s easy to do around here, too. Some of the same names have been recirculating for decades. I guess they just wanted to try to keep that going on a national level too.
Sigh. Time to get some rest.
Team Clinton is working quickly; I have a personalized e-mail already trying to capitalize on Pennsylvania.
Jen, what amazes me about your story re uninformed people is that there have been so many more opportunities. so much more coverage, a longer primary season, more debates, more states in play, more money spent, more web activity etc than ever before. This far in, you’d think cultural osmosis would have made a dent in even the most disinterested!
Jen @ 13: Having grown up outside of Pittsburgh, I was surprised Obama did as well as he did., Good, honest, friendly hardworking folks up there, but most learned all they needed to know by 11th grade and take some strange pride in that. Sleep well.
Team Clinton is working quickly; I have a personalized e-mail already trying to capitalize on Pennsylvania. — Mark Pencil, @14
See my message @12; by 23:05, they’d already raked in one million on the basis of today’s win; you must have been barrel-scrapings 🙂
And, there are no flies on Obama, either; *my* personalised (and counterintuitive) “donate” message thunk into my mailbox at 23:55… 🙂 I just finished processing the (small, as usual) donation. Will he catch up in the rake-in stakes, ladies and gentlemen?
Most of you remain uninformed about one important fact. The almost 14 million people who have voted for Hillary Clinton are doing so because they believe her to be the most qualified person to be the President of the United States of America. We are not fools. We are not ignorant. We are well-informed. For you, the media, and the democratic insiders to tell her and us … that we should be silent and go away is an insult to the democratic ideals our party so strongly advocates. Quit saying this. Accept the fact that we are here. We believe in her abilities and we will prevail.
LOL at Miriam. Maybe in 8 years–her time is not now.
HRC’s strategy to win the nomination looks remarkably similar to the Republican strategy to win in Iraq. Keep coming up with new metrics for success and new reasons to keep things going, and thus, avoid admitting you’re losing. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
Accept the fact that we are here. We believe in her abilities and we will prevail..
I accept that you are here (hell, for what it’s worth, if you’re queer, I’ll accept that, as well). I accept that you believe in [Hillary’s] abilities. But accept that you (she) will prevail? That’s a laugher. You’re taking a page out of Dubya’s book: simply saying it does not make it so.
You’rre only helping Grampy McCain. So what’s new?
Since 1994 the media and the politicians have pitted american against american turning us into a hate filled, divided country and we have and are paying a tragic price for it. Now the media and Hillary Clinton are dividing the Democratic Party. ENOUGH! She is not the candidate for a unified Democratic Party. She is the candidate for same. The candidate who would personify everything I am enraged at in our political system. Please, Hillary, go away.
Thanks Diebold (and the military contractors that bought them) for keeping the democratic race going under a cloud of suspicion. When will the dems learn that when the votes are privatized you cannot trust the results. or “prove” anything. In this situation (our democratic votes) screw the legal rights of corporations and their copyrights. This is the process of freedom being privatized.
No matter what republicans think, whomever wins the nomination will be the next president simply because we cannot have another republican choosing our SC justices or flooding our already compromised DoJ with more of their stooges, not to mention our federal agencies like the EPA etc. One more republican president and we will no longer have a democracy and democrats know this. No matter who wins, my vote will be to make sure no republican wins the WH no matter what.
Oh which t-shirt to wear?
WE WIN!! or THEY CHEATED!!
Beating McCain counts more than anything. Our Country has to count more than our personal preferences. Not being as educated as I wish, I ask are there any historical or mythical parallels to our current situation/dilemma? All I can come up with is ultimately we don’t want a Pyricc victory.
I knew there was an H in there.
Most of you remain uninformed about one important fact. The almost 14 million people who have voted for Hillary Clinton are doing so because they believe her to be the most qualified person to be the President of the United States of America. — Marian, @17
What makes you think we “remain uninformed” about that “important fact”? The Clintons and the Clintonistas have been informing us about that “important fact” for months, loudly; do you think we’re both deaf and illiterate?
Even if you didn’t tell us just why you have voted for her, don’t you think most of us would have extended you the courtesy of thinking you have voted for the *right* reasons (because you “believe she’ll be the most qualified person to be the President of USA”), however mistaken your beliefs might be in our opinion?
Why, do you think, even more millions have voted for Obama? Because we believe he’s the most qualified person to sink USA further into the quagmire? Because we believe he’s the most competent one to sell us further down the river? Do you think all of us are both fools and villains? Is that what you’re saying?
Marian, just listen to yourself for a minute, would ya? On top of that quote of yours above, your “We are not fools. We are not ignorant. We are well-informed.” sounds mighty unconvincing. All hot air and no evidence, one might even say.
Congratulations on a big night Marian. Let’s agree that whichever democrat gets the nomination, we’ll both support them and work for their election! ok? 😉
According to Fineman on MSNBC, Clinton’s camp is going to go even more negative (how is that possible?) because it’s working for them. Obama’s camp is split between an Axelrod-lef group that favors fighting back and a Daschle-led group that favors acting Presidential now that the nomination is almost won. Normally I would tend towards the 2nd group, until I remember: since when has anyone following Daschle’s bend-over-and-take-it advice ever done well politically?
I’m a Pittsburgher who has done some canvassing for Barack this past week. I thought it would be closer, I even thought he could possibly pull out a victory. I feel bad. I too am amazed at how little people seem to be paying attention with any depth at all.
I’m sorry we couldn’t have handed the whole nomination to Barack today. I apologize to the rest of the country for my state. I’m so tired of all this negativity spewing from the Clinton campaign. I just want it to end.
I’m too old for all this stuff.
Looks like Karl Rove and Clifford May are running new bogus attack ads on key Democrats to try to bring telecom amnesty back from the dead.
Any additional primary voting is a total waste of time. I feel sorry for Bill and Hillary, however, they should never again be allowed in the White House (we citizens cannot afford to lose any more furniture to them). To provide the “D” party with an open opportunity to confront John McCain, Obama should be left as the only Democrat in the race.
Just how do we accomplish this??? It’s quite simple. It’s very compassionate!!
This is it.: Bill and Hillary Clinton should be euthanized. The rallying cry…or song, if you care to put it to music…should be, “Let’s make Chelsea an orphan.”
Now that wasn’t so difficult, was it??
My metamucil is waiting. Love to Barry and Michelle. Oliver 4/23/2008
PS: If euthanizing doesn’t pull your crank…then how about fitting Bill and Hillary, each, with a colostomy bag over their heads and around their necks for the remainder of the 2008 election process. What a wonderful way for saving the CA-CA from ruining our TV screens.
In a more serious vein, remember that political promises made during a campaign, by any of the three candidates, cannot be “promised” without the consent of your other elected representatives. The “grain of salt” must be invoked when any of the three say: “This is what I’LL do when elected.” And as you crucify George W., about the war in Iraq and Talibanistan, remember that initially Bill said YES, Hillary said YES, McCain said YES, and Barack Obama said NO.
Should Obama prevail to represent the Democrats in the general election, don’t you just have a great mental picture of Bill and Hillary campaigning for him. They’ll do all they can to make him lose, so they can try again in 2012. Remember how they “helped” John Kerry during his campaign? Bill and Hillary wanted him to lose so they would have an open field this time.
Watch closely how they campaign for Obama. It will be like a skit on Comedy Central.
Okay, I’m done for now. I got all that out…and I don’t need the metamucil..
Oliver 4/23/2008
It’s unfortunate that under educated,gun toting, beer drinking, biggoted, folks are replacing born again, gun toting, under educated, biggoted folks as the Americans who will be choosing the person running this country. That should speak volumes about what a America has become. Our elitist forefathers are turning in their graves for sure.
Lance (5): Interesting that Barack wins college graduates with BAs but Hillary wins post-graduate studies.
Even more interesting that 26% claimed they had post grad study. But then it’s pretty clear that Hillary supporters don’t consider lying to be a disqualifier.
I think the most disappointing aspect of this primary, is that if you live in a rural area, you will have a polling place within 5 miles of home, and it takes 5 minutes to vote. If you live in a city, it can take hours. Based on the demographics, it’s as if Obama was participating in a caucus, where voters had to be highly motivated, while Clinton was in a primary, where they don’t. This, of course, was an important factor in Bush’s wins, so you would think the Dems in a Dem state would consider that a problem worth fixing.
If I’m looking at the numbers correctly, Clinton is walking away from this primary with a “net-10” gain in delegates. North Carolina alone will probably erase that gain; adding Indiana into the mix will do so for certain.
Mathematically, this thing is drawing to a conclusion that no amount of spin can overcome—Obama is about 300 delegates away from the nomination, and Clinton is about 435. She will need to win the remaining delegates by a ratio of almost 3:2 in order to win this thing.
A 55-45 win in Pennsylvania misses that mandatory margin of victory by 50%, and it will be extremely difficult to sell the idea that she is best qualified to go the distance when she only gets half-way to the finish line with a 10-point margin of victory
Another point to bring up is that while she’s been throwing the kitchen sink at Obama, he hasn’t really thrown much back at her. She’s trailing Obama’s wrist-slapping—and she wants the country to believe that she can survive the all-out assault the GOP will have waiting for her? Most all of her political wounds, to-date, have been self-inflicted, and her kitchen-sink strategy has done little more than damage her ethical credibility.
Bluntly put—Clinton is a “kamikaze” candidate….
Hillary’s campaign is the hungry zombie that would not die.
If this were ANYONE else they would have succumbed to overwhelming pressure and dropped out a month or more ago– she’s *still* behind in delegates, states won and the popular vote.
But it’s different rules for the Clintons. I keep forgetting that.
Steve (#38) – “… while she’s been throwing the kitchen sink at Obama, he hasn’t really thrown much back at her….”
There is another thing which hasn’t been mentioned directly, but which must be understood, however painful. If Obama were white, going tit-for-tat (i.e., throwing the kitchen sink back at her) would be expected. Imagine, say, John Edwards or Chris Dodd going against Hillary at this point. All’s fair, etc. But as the black late-night host on San Francisco’s KGO radio put it recently, in racist America it would simply be suicide, in the minds of most voters, for a black man to “sass” a white woman. “Sass” means not being properly deferential, not throwing that kitchen sink.
Were Obama white he could bring up all that baggage that Hillary keeps saying she’s overcome. It wouldn’t be pretty. I don’t think she has overcome it in the minds of most Americans. She’s just put it behind her, and Obama can’t bring it back into the national spotlight the way the Republicans surely will if she’s our nominee this Fall.
Given that Obama is fighting with one arm tied behind his back, it’s good he has achieved what now looks to be an unbeatable edge in delegates. But let’s not kid ourselves: as much as our mostly subterranean racism has been an obstacle within our party, it isn’t anything compared to what we’ll be up against when we take on the party of Nixon’s “southern strategy” and Grampy McCain.
Ed, I imagine that Obama will unleash that “arm behind his back” once it’s time to do so—which should be in the next few days. Hillary cannot win this thing now; she didn’t get the margin of victory needed to justify continuance of the struggle.
It is time to begin the assault on “Grampy”—although I prefer to think of him as that ugly old bridge-troll magician from Monty Python’s “Grail” movie. The curled lip and snarling demeanor is a dead giveaway…..
Hillary did well in the PA primary. She is a good candidate and would be a good president.
But once again we’ll hear that Obama can’t win the big states, with many electoral votes, and that this win in Pennsylvania proves it. For Pennsylvania, and probably the others, this argument is specious.
In addition to Hillary’s usual 15 year head start, in Pennsylvania Obama faced the formidible Governor Ed Rendell and the Democratic establishment, including the mayors of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and most other cities.
Also, he was not running against John McCain nor any other white male. Hillary benefits considerably from the votes of white women. These women are not going to defect to McCain in the general election. Nor will most other Hillary voters suddenly turn Republican.
So the claim that Obama can’t win the big states is nonsense. He can and he will.
In the larger picture, it of course would be important and beneficial for th United States to elect a competent woman to the presidency. But women have led countries before and such a positive step does not
compare to the prospect of a talented and inspiring black man as leader of the world’s major, largely white country
Thanks Greg at #4. I was wondering what you were wondering.
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