Potomac Primary Thread
I voted early this morning in this precinct, one of precious few registered Republicans. I'll be watching results and updating this thread, but ace Virginia politics blog Not Larry Sabato predicted an Obama blowout long before the state's polls were closing (at 7).
Anything but a 3-state Obama rout will be a shock, but the late Huckabee momentum should make Virginia and Maryland interesting. There is a very outside chance of Paul doing well in DC.
7:04: Obama wins Virginia in a landslide: Exits show him winning women by 16 points and men by 31 points. The GOP race is too close to call and I'm about to dig into those exits.
So, once again, John McCain won with voters who "strongly disapprove" of the Iraq War with 34 percent of the vote. Ron Paul tied for second with 28 percent–tied, of course, with Mike "we must defend our honor" Huckabee. Ron Paul's best age demographic: 30-39 year olds, with 14 percent. I think someone will soon say (wrongly) that Paul split the anti-McCain vote. Of course, those Paul voters would never vote for anyone less libertarian than von Mises.
If Mike Huckabee loses Virginia narrowly, with thin turnout in the southwest, it will be the second time an ice storm in his strongest area cost him crucial votes. The first time was South Carolina–obviously if he'd beaten McCain there he'd be a frontrunner now. Time to rethink this "God" thing?
7:46: Virginia, unlike a lot of states, offers a district-by-district breakdown of the vote, and it's great for Obama: He's winning all but one district, the conservative white southwestern 9th district. The endorsement by Rep. Rick Boucher did very little for him.
7:55: CNN has massaged its exit polls with some late data and it looks awfully good for Huckabee: There were marginally more male voters than female voters, but McCain only won them by 3 points… Huckabee is up by 6 points among women. Fifty-seven percent of voters were weekly churchgoers and Huckabee won them by 18 points. Most tellingly 72 percent think McCain is mostly likely to beat the Democratic nominee… but Huckabee won 33 percent of those voters. There might be enough of a conservative protest vote to win this one for Huck. Huckabee won voters who considered the campaign ads in their vote even though he only had one ad running–the FairTax ad.
8:01: The District of Columbia goes for Obama, and it's… too close to call for McCain. Wow.
8:49: As I was picking up a friend in the ice storm (the same one that's delayed Maryland poll closings until 9:30), CNN called Virginia for McCain. He will almost certainly win while losing the conservative vote.
9:13: MSNBC (and, I'm assuming, the other networks), have cut to a Hillary Clinton speech in El Paso to punish her for her losses tonight. It's my job to suspend bias and disbelief, but… a political party is considering nominating this candidate? Really? Against John McCain? Really?
9:37: No surprise, Obama and McCain win Maryland—Obama by about the same margin as he did in Virginia, among every voter group, and McCain by a lot better. In his Wisconsin speech Obama refers to "Bush-McCain Republicans".
9:58: One bummer about Maryland extending its polling hours so late: It'll take hours to know who won the murderball primaries in the 1st district (Gilchrest versus Pipkin and Harris) and the 4th district (Edwards versus Wynn). Results are trickling in slowly, slowly here.
10:02: Salt in a Ron Paulian's wound: Obama includes Abraham Lincoln in the list of people who believed that "yes we can."
10:08: Righteous "Ron Paul Republican" Robert Broadus is running second in the 4th district Maryland GOP primary. Fire it up!