I’ll periodically update this page tonight as results come in from Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas and Vermont. All numbers from CNN unless otherwise noted.
Right now CNN is calling both Ohio and Vermont for McCain. I expect him to handily win all four states in contention tonight since the Huckabee protest voting seems to be dwindling.
In fact, in Texas and Ohio a number of Republicans will likely vote in the Democratic primary for Clinton hoping to extend that contest.
CNN has called Vermont for Obama, an expected result.
7:30 — Very early — less than 1% reporting — Clinton leads in Ohio and Obama in Texas. Keep in mind all numbers from Texas tonight will reflect only the primary votes. The caucuses will take up to a week to report and the delegates earned in Texas won’t be final until then.
8:00 — CNN calls Texas for McCain and announces those delegates give him the GOP nomination. I’m not sure about that delegate math, it seems I read somewhere he couldn’t secure that number tonight, but it was/is a matter of time. As reported on CNN, it’s amazing to think where McCain was just months ago. Broke and trailing the field. Now he’s on the ballot in November. Congrats to John McCain and his staff.
8:20 — CNN calls Rhode Island for McCain. Still very early and Obama leads in Texas, Clinton in Ohio and Rhode Island. The Texas caucuses are going on and pretty crazy from what I hear.
9:15 — CNN calls Rhode Island for Clinton. She still leads in Ohio and Obama is holding a narrowing lead in Texas. To offset the expected Obama win in the caucuses Clinton needs to win the Texas primary by a sizable margin.
10:00 — CNN calls Ohio for Clinton. From the exit polls she cleaned house with the female vote. Clinton has pulled slightly ahead in Texas, but based on numbers I checked out at the NYT’s website Obama won heavily in Dallas, Tarrant, Harris and Travis counties (that’d be Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston and Austin, respectively.) The only major urban area Clinton is leading (by a smaller margin than Obama in the other four) is Bexar, San Antonio’s heavily Hispanic county. I’m going to guess Obama will regain the lead as these major urban centers fully report. Very close vote at any rate.
10:15 — To further solidify the GOP, Huckabee called McCain to concede and McCain travels to D.C. tomorrow for Bush 43’s official endorsement.
11:00 — Last update of the night. Clinton is holding a slim margin in Texas — numbers right now from the state Office of the Secretary of State stands at 50.58-47.45% Clinton. From what I can tell from online tools, a lot of votes have yet to be registered from Dallas and Harris (particularly Harris) counties. Both Obama strongholds. The actual numbers are close enough those two counties could swing the total vote back to Obama.
Clinton had a good night compared to the entire month of February. On the downside is she was expected to completely blow Obama out of the water in both Texas and Ohio as recently as three weeks ago. Of course the night will probably a draw, at worst delegate-wise, and once the Texas caucus results roll in sometime next week Obama will most likely go down as the overall winner.
Clinton’s not leaving the race, but by every method of reckoning she has almost no chance of winning the pledged delegates or the total vote nationwide. For more on that follow this link to a Jonathan Alter article for Newsweek. On the Democratic side of the field, let the spin begin.
McCain and the GOP have to be very pleased with tonight’s results.