Outside the Beltway

Super Tuesday Results

James Joyner · Tuesday, February 5, 2008 · 1 comment

Well, the polls are closing in parts of the country and results will be flowing in all night.

Drudge has some leaked exit poll results showing Obama doing better than expected in Alabama and a couple of other states. How reliable they will turn out is anyone’s guess. My strong expectation is that I’ll have gone to bed before the results are known out West.

CNN is projecting McCain the winner in New Jersey but then that’s no surprise.

ABC News, which provides my favorite mainstream media website package for primary returns (and from whom I borrowed the Super Tuesday graphic above) has Obama taking his home state of Illinois, Romney taking his home state of Massachusetts, Clinton taking Oklahoma, and McCain taking New Jersey, Connecticut, and Illinois.

UPDATE (2047): CNN-HDTV is projecting McCain to take Delaware and Huckabee and Clinton to win in their home states of Arkansas.

They’re also giving an inordinate amount of coverage to Georgia, where they say Romney is staking his comeback hopes. That strikes me as an odd place for him to make his stand, frankly, if true.

Their color scheme for the candidates is rather odd. The Dems get blue, with clinton getting light and Obama dark (hidden racist symbolism?) while the Republicans get red: regular red for McCain, pink for Huckabee, and brownish red for Romney; not sure who got to pick but I’m guessing it wasn’t the Huckabee camp.

They’re projecting Obama to take Georgia.

Wolf Blitzer briefly gave McCain Massachusetts but then recanted.

A bunch of states close their polls at 9 Eastern which should lead to a handful of exit poll projections in states where the outcome was essentially not in doubt.

UPDATE (2104): No new MSM projections yet, although they’ll be coming soon.

OTB projects McCain and Clinton will take New York.

Drudge has the summary of the count so far: Clinton taking Arkansas, Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma and Tennessee and Obama taking Georgia and Illinois. McCain takes Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, New Jersey; Huckabee gets Arkansas and West Virginia; and Romney Massachusetts.

CNN has now joined OTB in projecting Clinton to take New York, which she represents in the Senate.

UPDATE (2147): Alabama goes to Obama. New York “officially” to McCain. Strangely, not a lot of other projections yet.

CNN-TV has finally given Clinton New Jersey which, again, would have been a shocker had it gone any other way.

Regular commenter Triumph has created a chatroom wherein you may cyber-chat about tonight’s results.

UPDATE (2200): Utah to Romney. Rather a foregone conclusion.

Oklahoma to McCain.

North Dakota to Obama. So, yes, he can win a predominately white state!

UPDATE (2220): CNN-TV projects Obama wins Kansas and Connecticut. He’s sweeping through White America! And half of Connecticut commutes to work in NYC.

I watched Huckabee’s speech which was quite polished and eloquent. Except for the surreal moments when he kept mentioning that he would be president in about a year, which of course he won’t. One wonders how candidates do that without feeling like idiots.

Huckabee did take Alabama, though.

Obama takes the Minnesota caucus. Of course, Jesse Jackson won that back in 1984, right?

UPDATE (2358 – Alex Knapp): Here are the states that can be called so far, according to CNN. I have bolded those states where the winner had over 60% of the vote.

Democrats
Obama – AL, CO, CT, DE, GA, ID, IL, KS, MN, ND, UT
Clinton – AR, MA, NJ, NY, OK, TN

Republicans
McCain -AZ, CT, DE, IL, NJ, NY, OK
Romney – MA, MN, ND, UT
Huckabee -AL, AR, GA, WV

UPDATE (0045 – Alex Knapp): CNN has just called California for McCain and Clinton. Clinton’s showing is pretty impressive at this point–55% to 33%. However, I wonder just how much Clinton can honestly see this as a big win. The 10% vote for Edwards suggest that there was a very significant portion of early voting going on in the state. Still, there’s no doubt that the combination of New York and California was a good thing for Clinton.

Arizona has also been called for Clinton. Missouri is still too close to call, but Obama has a slight lead. All in all on the Democrat’s side so far, a surprisingly strong night for Obama, though Clinton remains the frontrunner.

On the Republican side, this is clearly a big night for John McCain and a disappointing one for Romney. Huckabee’s campaign, though, has shown some surprising strength tonight, even though it’s next to certain that McCain is going to take the nomination at this point.

UPDATE (0105 – Alex Knapp): CNN has called Missouri for McCain, and while they haven’t been willing to call Missouri for Obama, I’m willing to at this point, since 99% of precincts are reporting and Obama has the lead.

UPDATE (0115 – Alex Knapp): On the Democratic side, Obama has picked up Alaska and the poll results trickling in from New Mexico show a slight Clinton lead, but it’s way too early to call New Mexico.

On the GOP side, Huckabee has picked up Tennessee. Romney has locked up Colorado and Montana.