NPR is calling Missouri for Clinton

McCain needs to hold off Romney in California to stab the final dagger in his heart.

Around 3% from what I'm seeing. Unless NPR knows something we don't, seems a little premature to call it.

NPR might be jumping the gun just a little bit. Missouri is going to end up being effectively a tie, although Clinton may barely hang on from a popular vote standpoint. Man this is a wild year.

The Democratic rules are complicated as hell, but it certainly looks like the split will be very close to even. Does Obama's cash advantage come into play now in TX, PA and OH?

And if this isn't decided after TX on March 4th, PA will get a month and a half of campaigning before the April 22 contest. Hell my vote on May 6th may actually mean something.

Blink. That update took it from 45-44 for Obama in Utah to 50-42.

Apparently there are tons of morons voting for Edwards out here, though.

CNN had some interesting exit poll stuff from California. Obama slightly won whites and won HUGE with blacks, but Clinton won big with Latinos and HUGE with Asians (for some reason). Now to see how it all falls into place.

My wife and I went to the caucus tonight in Lawrence and it was ridiculously crowded. This is the first caucus in Kansas since 1992 as in the previous elections, Kansas was after Super Tuesday and the election was already decided.

It doesn't sound like much, but nearly 5000 votes were counted from the 80K people in the city (~60K registered voters, maybe 2/3rds Democrat). We got there at about 6:10 for the caucus that starts at 7 and the lines were huge.

It was fun

SI

Missouri is also extremely close on the Republican side between Huckabee and McCain. Within 1,500 votes.

CNN exit polls say that Obama won the white vote and obviously the black vote in California, but got trounced 2:1 for Hispanics and lost the Asian vote 75%/25%.

It'll be interesting to hear his speech. I imagine he has a doozy since he's back on his home turf and all, but...I think just from a "we didn't lose anywhere we should've won" standpoint, he'll at least be able to spin it as a "great day" in the long journey towards the nomination or whatever.

Looks like CNN just called Idaho and Colorado for Obama.

Who the hell had Idaho going for the black guy in the pool?

See my previous quip about Lawrence, KS. :)

Probably the 15,000 people showed up at that rally in Boise.

Yeah, well, I'd been hearing for years that Idaho was the home of the survivalist/white supremacist nuts.

I guess maybe those folks don't vote?

I know the vote totals in Idaho are small but ... foxnews says 47% of precincts reporting and it's 1,298 to 395. That's less than 1700 votes so far. There were lines almost that long today at some Georgia precincts, and 1/3rd the size of the Lawrence, KS caucus SI mentions up the thread. Are those numbers posted really right?

Fixed that for you ;)

It was a caucus. And there are barely any Democrats in these parts, so I can't imagine there are too many more in Idaho, despite the larger population.

I think many are still missing point about where the Dems in the west are located. In Idaho, that would mean the college towns only (and a few celebs up in Ketchum area). The Reps in Idaho wouldn't even bother to show up to effect the outcome. Same thing in WY and MT where they are all concentrated in Laramie and Bozeman, plus the celebs in the resort areas.

Yeah, touché.

Sweet, Obama within ~9k votes of Clinton in Missouri and still 7% of precincts left to count.

Ok, what everyone else said while I was typing too slow.

Absentee ballots from before he quit.

My bad (and thanks for the correction).
I mentally had it as a primary not a caucus.

I don't think that's all of it though. Edwards also had surprising showing (for example) in Tennesse, including some of the early returns which don't typically include early ballots/absentee ballots as they're usually the last ones counted.
Presumably a good portion of those are simply "not Clinton"/"not Obama" votes.

I hope the delegates in CA will come close to even despite the votes.

By the way, no surprise about the Asian votes in CA. You have to spend a lot of time in SF and other places to know why.

Yeah, in Laramie I know most contested democratic primaries don't generate more than a few hundred voters. It's just not very big. Cheyenne and Casper are far more influential in that way. (Casper even had a gay mayor for goodness sakes..)

Laramie just isn't very big and students here don't really vote at all unless they're conservative. Or they vote in their hometowns in Wyoming.

Obama is being way more policy specific -- in sound bites -- in his speech tonight than he has in any of the others. And I know he's doing to quell the talk of "we don't know where he stands.."

But it's late and people probably aren't listening. But...he is doing it in a way that he hadn't in his previous speeches after primaries.

And it's funny how his youth-laden crowds would rather just chant "Yes We Can" a lot and prefer he didn't say so much.

That's interesting.

Isn't that pretty much the expectation at this point?
(and even for the past several days?)

(2004)

(2000)

(1996)

(keeping in mind, this site uses Red for Democrat and Blue for Republican)

Using the last 3 presidential maps, guess which county is Douglas (where Lawrence is)? ;)

SI

The one that looks like somebody cut off the southern half of Utah?

Being married to an asian and having lived in an asian country for over 11 years I can speak to this. In california especially Asians haven't been the best opf friends with African americans and from everything I have seen it goes both ways(generalization of course)

SI, very nice work.

LOL, I do like that. It seems to indicate that the crowd really don't care about his policy positions. They just like his style and want to change "Yes we can".

It is quite a break from the past though. Perhaps that criticism has finally gotten to him. Though I'm sure the Republican operatives are writing down all the programs and promises he has spoken of and calculating the cost so that the number can be used in the 1st general election debate if need be.

Fox news projects McCain to win Missouri. That would be big, from what I can tell.

So is that one of your red states that will easily go to Clinton and not McCain?

Wasn't on my list, since I said "Southern".

So that isn't just a big stereotype... huh, interesting. Well, that could definately explain things.

1 + 1 = 2

Obama now leads in Missouri with 97% in.

Damn Imran, we got to get you out of the East Coast once in a while. :)

Well, they're not my maps. They're from http://uselectionatlas.org/ Great site, if you haven't seen it. It has presidential maps going back all the way to the 1700s, iirc.

SI

Maybe I'm just a little out of it (especially since I haven't touched the TV since I got home a couple of hours ago) but ... wasn't this one called by every network & wire service for Clinton somewhere around 930pm?

If so, I have to go with a big "WTF" to all of them. I mean, this shit really isn't brain surgery folks, if (as someone mentioned up the thread) St. Louis area votes weren't in at all then there's no way in Hell I can understand why anyone would even attempt to call the state yet.

edit: I've sat through enough of these things to know that there's certain geographic areas you have to watch and can't always just guess at until you get a good bit of real data. Has every experienced analyst at every outlet simply stopped working and they've suddenly been left with rank amateurs?

One of the best come from behind victories? But then again, it probably depends on what order they counts the votes and from where.

Just saw that. Huge swing.

SI

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmi...nt_606534.html

Obama's camp currently projects they will take a 606-534 lead on delegates

I am familiar since I do make a living working with software like that.

Hillary Clinton has won California.

You a GIS hack?

SI

I've watched enough election results in Missouri in the last, oh...12-16 years that I know better than to predict it for either candidate before the St. Louis votes start coming in. That always seems to screw me up.

I'm only aware of NPR calling it, but I could have missed something. St. Louis ALWAYS comes in late in Missouri. I'm guessing it and Kansas City are in now, but there's only 2% left to count.