Democratic Fight Hurting Both Hillary and Obama

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/daily_presidential_tracking_poll

The controversy over Obama's former pastor, Reverend Wright, seems to have had serious effects on racial support for both candidates with Obama only getting 36% of the white vote and Hillary suffering a steep fall in African American support in the fall only getting 55%, which would be the lowest level of black support in a half century for a Democratic presidential candidate. The divide is reflected in state polling as well and it shows particularly troubling news for Obama.

In Kentucky, Obama suffers from a much larger deficit among whites than does Hillary at 43 points versus 12: http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=45313abe-4220-409a-bc6c-5159d0751f46

In Ohio, a 19-point deficit versus even for Clinton: http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=32265e32-9fce-4c9e-83e1-509847379601

In Missouri, a 23-point deficit versus 10 for Clinton:
http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=8d367ce2-f928-4f60-b2a1-ce2b97ad6144

What's more is that by disecting the numbers, it's clear that the deterioration is predominantly among white Democrats as Independent and Republican numbers vary little between the two. In West Virginia, Rasmussen conducted a poll that showed Obama with only a 53% favorability rating among Democrats. It is likely this is related to the general problem at hand. We will see in the coming days if Obama's big speech helped this growing problem or not. For Hillary, her problem is that she has very little support left among black Democrats and this seems to be a problem for the fall. In both cases, they have serious problems.

State Profile: West Virginia

West Virginia was one of the most reliable states the Democrats had for many many decades. It even voted for Michael Dukakis in 1988 by nearly 5% while Dukakis lost nationwide by a whopping 8%. In close elections such as 1960 and 1968, it voted for the Democratic candidates by convincing margins. However, in 2000, for the first time since 1972, West Virginia voted more Republican than the nation as a whole and this became even more pronounced in 2004 when the state voted 13% for Bush over Kerry. What happened here? Is the state following the pattern that every other southern state followed and becoming a Republican state?

The presidential trends seen in 2000 and 2004 do not seem to match up with the state trends. West Virginia has a Democratic governor, two Democratic senators, two of the three House seats belong to the Democrats, and both houses of the state legislature are absolutely dominated by the Democrats. Furthermore, there has been very little errosion in party identification that is usually seen in the other southern states that seem to be lining up increasingly with the Republicans. In 2004, 50% of West Virginians described themselves as Democrats and 32% as Republicans. In 2006, the numbers were virtually idenitical with 51% saying they were Democrats and 32% as Republicans.

The two key demographics that seem to be giving the Democrats trouble in national elections are White Evangelicals and gun-owners, and there is certainly heavy cross-over between these two groups. In both 2004 and 2006, 48% of West Virginians described themselves as White Evangelicals versus 23% nationwide. Along the same lines, 71% of West Virginians polled in 2004 were gun-owners versus 41% nationwide. Among these two demographics, Bush won handily with a 19-point win among gun-owners and 33-point win among White Evangelicals.

However, the shift towards Bush appears to have larger factors at work than just these social criteria. West Virginia voters said by a 16-point margin in 2004 that going to war with Iraq was the right decision versus 6-points nationwide. On this question, Bush carried war supporters by 73-points, roughly in-line with the national spread. With these figures it is evident that West Virginia voters are generally more hawkish on foreign policy than the nation as a whole. What was certainly clear was that West Virginians did not vote based on their economic situation as 61% gave the economy a negative assessment in 2004 versus 52% nationally.

Specifically, some very key counties in the south of the state have shifted toward the Republicans on the presidential level at an alarming rate. The most populous county, Kanawha, flipped Republican for the first time since 1984. However, the largest collapse in the Democratic vote in a county occured in Raleigh County, south of Kanawha. Raleigh County went from voting for Dukakis by nearly 16 points to voting for Bush in 2004 by 22%. This represents one of the most rapid shifts of any county in the country. Similarly, Lincoln County in the south went from even voting for Walter Mondale in 1984 by 10% to voting for Bush in 2004, albeit narrowly. The deterioration of the vote for Democratic candidates in southern West Virginia is a fascinating phenomenon due to the speed of its occurance. It remains to be seen whether or not this trend holds.

Due to the nature of West Virginia's demographics, being 95% white and so heavily culturally conservative, 2008 does not look promising for the Democrats in West Virginia. If the cultural demographics are combined with the apparently more hawkish inclinations of West Virginia voters on national security, there is a potent obstacle in the way of Democrats bringing West Virginia back into their electoral coalition.

Setting Up the Battlefield

I believe in establishing the clear lines of battle for the 2008 election as to what states are truly safe for either side before I start analyzing the ones that aren't actually safe. Now this is a projection that takes into account a close election, not a blow out. If it is a blow out, i.e. a win of 6 or more points one way or the other, this does not apply.

Republican Base:
Indiana(11)
Kentucky(8)
North Carolina(15)
South Carolina(8)
Georgia(15)
Alabama(9)
Mississippi(6)
Louisiana(9)
Tennessee(11)
Texas(34)
Oklahoma(7)
Kansas(6)
Nebraska(5)
North Dakota(3)
South Dakota(3)
Montana(3)
Wyoming(3)
Utah(5)
Idaho(3)
Arizona(10, with McCain as the nominee)
Alaska(3)

Total: 178 EVs

Democratic Base:
Vermont(3)
Maine(4)
Massachusetts(12)
Connecticut(7)
Rhode Island(4)
New York(31)
New Jersey(15)
Maryland(10)
Delaware(3)
D.C.(3)
Illinois(21)
California(55)
Washington State(11)
Hawaii(4)

Total: 180 EVs

Well, that leaves a lot of states to analyze. I'll get to it over the next several months.

Iowa Poll: Obama Crushes McCain, McCain beats Clinton

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080224/NEWS09/802240333

Honestly, I thought voters were more partisan than this. The Des Moines Register Poll is simply the gold standard in Iowa polling so I will take its word over anything. The fact Obama is beating McCain by well into double digits in Iowa of all places is very interesting, though it may indicate more of a shift in Iowa than anything. I think these numbers will tighten up considerably as there is still a very solid base of Republican support in the Hawkeye State. Still, there are indications of a surge in Democratic voter registration and Democrats did do very well in 2006 carrying two house seats, winning the open gubernatorial race, and winning seats in the legislature.

I will have to slightly revise my planned analysis of Iowa that I was about to release, but now is on hold.

Okay, I lied, my hiatus wasn't over.

I wish I hadn't been so busy or else I could have given a really good run down of the Wisconsin Primary before it happened. In any case, the Democratic nomination is on the verge of being locked up. Obama is surging in Texas and I suspect we will see similar movement in Ohio. Very telling in the Wisconsin results was the fact that Obama won Brown and Outagamie counties. Those are traditionally home of predominantly working class Democrats and the fact that he could carry those by a similar margin to the state as a whole speaks volumes to how he has managed to dismantle the Clinton Coalition.

Hillary can claim a moral victory with wins in Texas and Ohio, but that's probably about all she can do now. The delegate math simply does not work in her favor. If Michigan and Florida are seated that might be different, but that outcome is not likely.

For the Republicans, despite a couple scares, McCain is clearly on the verge of wrapping up the nomination. He may already be there depending on the math. Huckabee is a likely choice for veep, but look to Texas at Kay Bailey Hutchison as a potential choice. She is conservative enough and brings added appeal to a ticket that is headed by the oldest, whitest guy ever to have a good shot at the presidency. I know Dole was older, but he didn't have a good shot.

Hiatus Almost Over

Sorry I've been gone for a little bit. Lots of school work and preparing an application for the La Follette School of Public Affairs that's due in a matter of weeks. I will start on a series of state by state analyses to set up the playing field for the fall so each state is thoroughly explained in a similar manner to my Virginia post.

As for the Virginia and Maryland primaries, they confirm a definite Obama surge across the country. Hillary needs to make a stand in Wisconsin to avoid being swept away at this point. Anything less than being within 10 points in Wisconsin is not good enough for her to stay in the race. We shall see what happens.

Biggest Loser of the Night: Romney

This guy lost and lost bad. I can't find one state he won that I didn't expect. He spent up to $28 million on those ads prior to Super Tuesday and got creamed. I'm glad Huckabee and McCain got together to do him in in West Virginia. That was terrific.

Romney needed California badly and actually got creamed there largely among the Latino and Asian voters as well as moderates and liberals. His attempt to repackage himself as a conservative just isn't fooling enough people no matter how Rush Limbaugh tries to vouch for him.

I would write more, but I stayed up to 3 watching results so I need some rest. This was the one result I can be happy with for sure.

Super Tuesday Predictions(Republicans)

All right, let's do this!

Safe McCain:
New York(+27)
New Jersey(+24)
Connecticut(+22)
Illinois(+17)
Arizona(+14)

Likely McCain:
Tennessee(+8)
Missouri(+7)
Oklahoma(+7)

Safe Romney:
Utah(+78, yeah you read that right)
Massachusetts(+22)
Colorado(+16)

Likely Romney:
Montana(+11)

Safe Huckabee:
Arkansas(+20, just a guess)

Toss Ups:
California
Alabama
Georgia
Delaware
Minnesota
North Dakota
Alaska

Here's my best guesses on these:

Georgia(McCain +4)
Alabama(Huckabee +2)
Delaware(McCain +8)
Minnesota(Romney +7)
North Dakota(Romney +18)
Alaska(Romney +23, just because he's probably the only one with anything up there)
California(McCain +5)

In short, McCain wraps the night up. I had to make a lot of these predictions without the benefit of polls. We'll see what happens.

The Potential Fly in my Prediction Ointment

There is no doubt, no doubt at all given the polling data that we are witnessing a late Obama surge. I poo-poo the Zogby polls because they simultaneously show Romney opening up a lead in California and I just don't buy it, but the rest of them do show a clear move to Obama nationally and in several states. The one that gave me religion on this subject was the CNN/Opinion Research Poll http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/04/national.poll/index.html showing Obama pulling ahead. I will caution that polls taken the weekend before a major election are volatile, but that having been said this correlates with an ABC News/Washington Post survey and a CBS/New York Times survey showing a basically tied race. Only one poll, Rasmussen, shows Clinton gaining.

What does this late surge mean? It means that Obama's margins in the states he's likely to win are probably going to be a little bit larger, Clinton's in her states a little bit smaller, and a couple states at the margins might flip. I'll stand by my predictions with the caveat that there is a large shift in the polling that I might not be fully appreciating.

Good Lord Utah

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695249479,00.html

This poll shows Romney winning Utah by....are you ready? 84% to 4%. I'll let that sink in. 84% to 4%. That's almost like something out of the Soviet Union or Saddam's Iraq. I'm sorry but numbers like that indicate there is something wrong with our democracy.

Super Tuesday Predictions(Democrats)

Okay, here's how I see it breaking down:

Safe Clinton:
New York(Hillary by +20)
Oklahoma(Hillary by +18)
Arkansas(??? no polls to go off of, but I'll guess by +20)
Tennessee(Hillary by +14)

Likely Clinton:
New Jersey(I'm ignoring the Zogby poll and going with the preponderance of other evidence, Hillary by +9)
Massachusetts(Hillary by +10)
Arizona(Hillary by +6)
New Mexico(Hillary by +9)

Safe Obama:
Illinois(Obama by +31)
Georgia(Obama by +18)
Utah(Obama by +20)
Kansas(I'm throwing this one out there, but I say Obama by +14)

Likely Obama:
Colorado(Obama by +11)
Idaho(Obama by +10)

Then comes the battleground as I see it.

Toss Ups:
California
Missouri
Alabama
Connecticut
North Dakota
Minnesota
Alaska

I will predict these in the following way:

Minnesota(Obama by +6, liberal activists in the Twin Cities carry the day. Watch for Clinton's strength in the far north.)
Missouri(Hillary by +4, strength in St. Louis county, not the city, is key here)
Connecticut(Hillary by +3, close but the establishment delivers)
North Dakota(Obama by +5)
Alabama(Obama by +4, African American strength comes through for him)
Alaska(Who the heck knows, I'll give it to Obama by +12)

and......

California(Hillary by +6)

I think that California is a notoriously difficult state to poll due to its incredible diversity, however I believe that Hillary's strength among Latinos and seniors will give her the edge in California.

Debate Thoughts and other stuff

I think both Hillary and Obama did quite well last night and both made a credible case that they should be the next president. Hillary explained most of her positions quite well with the exception of the Iraq resolution where Wolf Blitzer was correct, though rude, to call her naive for trusting Bush. Obama at times seemed to lose focus, but generally was very much on his game. The agreement between the two last night was more common than the disputes as I think they realize that there is little to be gained by tearing the party apart. Overall, it was one of the best debates I have seen in a long time. I think that's a great potential ticket, but it works better as Clinton/Obama than the other way around. Obama should pick someone with a less dominating personality as his veep if he wins the nomination.

I have to make one adjustment on my Super Tuesday list as I move Connecticut from Clinton's safe category to the Toss-ups. CT polling has tightened up dramatically in this ever volatile season and I will update the full list later.

Republicans, well, McCain is a steamroller at this point. The arch-conservatives are lining up behind Romney to stop him, but it looks like a moderate coup is being pulled off when you look at Arnold's and Rudy's endorsements over the past couple days. We'll see what happens on Super Tuesday, but I'll give McCain New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois, Arizona, and California for sure. I think he splits the southern states with Huckabee. Romney gets Utah, Colorado, and Massachusetts.

McCain wins it. I'm calling it.

The official call isn't in yet, but Miami and Palm Beach have yet to come in in any serious way and McCain is cleaning up in those areas. Miami, Palm Beach, and Broward are three of the biggest Republican vote hauls in the state. Romney barely shows up in any of them. It's done. McCain wins.

South Carolina and Beyond

Obama had a blowout win that surprised all but his most loyal supporters. He more than doubled Hillary Clinton's support, capturing over 55% of the vote in South Carolina. The single most impressive statistic of the night as far as I was concerned was the turnout of 532,468 Democratic voters in the South Carolina Primary. Just for some perspective, this is close to double the 290,000 turnout in 2004, about 100,000 votes more than the Republican turnout the week previously in a state that voted 58-42 for Bush in 2004, and represents 81% of the Democrats who voted in the 2004 general election for John Kerry.

Going forward, we will see what momentum this brings him. I suspect it will be a fairly decent boost, though likely not decisive. I think potentially helpful is the endorsement of Caroline Kennedy this morning in the New York Times.

Florida is not particularly relevant as there is almost no campaign time between now and then and all the focus will probably be on the Republican side where the race is very tight between John McCain and Mitt Romney. That's right, Giuliani is nowhere to be seen and will be going home soon.

February 5th is the big cheese and here's how I see the states lining up as of now:

Safe Clinton:
New York
Connecticut
Massachusetts
Oklahoma

Likely Clinton:
New Jersey
Tennessee
New Mexico
Arkansas
Delaware

Safe Obama:
Illinois

Likely Obama:
Georgia
Alabama(I know the polling doesn't reflect it yet, but given the demographics if they vote anything like South Carolina it's going to be his)
Minnesota

Toss Ups:
California
Idaho
Utah
Kansas
Missouri
Arizona
Alaska
Colorado
North Dakota

Yes, the task for Obama is a little daunting. He has a slight delegate lead at the moment and it won't matter much on February 5th, but he can win some big delegate totals. One thing both Hillary and Obama have going for them is that it is all proportional.

Mitt Romney: One Cynical Man

Okay, I've decided to make it clear why I don't like Mitt Romney. I believe this is a man who believes he can say anything at all and there's always the trusting 30-35% of people who will believe it. He also knows that's enough to win the nomination if he can get that much of the vote.

Let me enumerate his various cynical positions over time.

1. Abortion. The big one of modern American politics. Everyone has a position. Mitt Romney has had many. In 1994 he gave an impassioned defense of abortion rights in which he not only firmly stated he supported Roe v Wade, but told a personal story of a close family friend who died due to an illegal abortion. Heartwrenching and personal. He still maintained this position in 2002 when he ran for governor of Massachusetts. Now he says that sometime in his late 50s, this guy whose moral compass is supposed to be so clear, shifted all at once on this issue just in time to run for president. Huh? Who actually believes that? No personal revelation this time, just "I saw a bill pertaining to abortion and I said...geee....maybe I'm pro-life now." What a crock.

2. Gun control. Mittens was always big for gun control in Massachusetts in 1994 and 2002. He supported the Brady Bill and Massachusetts gun laws in general both times. Then, in 2006, he joined the NRA. That's awfully convenient isn't it? Right before you run for the Republican nomination?

3. Change. He never talked about it before Iowa, well not much anyway. Politicians, particularly unprincipled ones, say an awful lot so they can claim they were talking about anything. Suddenly, after the media declared that "change" was the theme of the campaign, what does he talk about non-stop? You guessed it.

4. Michigan jobs. Mitt here knew the #1 issue in Michigan was the economy and that the Detroit area would be where the state was decided. The auto-jobs are gone and not coming back even if sales ramped up again. They will never have the market shares they used to. Mitt knows this. However, he decides to go into the Detroit suburbs and lie like a rug. It worked beautifully as he won those counties with more than 40% of the vote, but it was a dirty lie.

I can go on and on. The guy is unprincipled beyond belief. He always positions himself with the majoritarian positions in any race he is running in. He never takes a minority position on anything. I'll at least give Bush some credit on that one. He's slightly less dishonest than Romney, but that's not saying much.

I return...to make a SC Prediction

South Carolina Prediction:
Obama 43%
Hillary 33%
Edwards 21%
Others and uncommitted: 3%

We'll see what happens, but this is my total guess. These polls have been extremely volatile. The thing that I think is clear is that Obama will win, but beyond that it's tricky.

California Romney's best chance to the nomination

http://thephoenix.com/article_ektid54916.aspx

This new poll, from an outfit I've never heard of, paves Romney's single best chance to capture the Republican nomination. He polls very poorly in New York and New Jersey. Connecticut seems to be infertile ground for him. None of the polls of various southern states show him making any progress there. However, he seems to have solid strength among California's economic conservatives, who generally distrust McCain. If he can squeeze out a win over McCain in California while capturing Massachusetts and Utah, the latter of which is a slam dunk, he will have a respectable showing on Super Tuesday.

There is one big problem though. It is estimated some 40% of voters will vote absentee and many have already done so. These voters most likely broke for McCain by a decent margin. It will be interesting to see what transpires here. If Romney is to have a shot at the nomination, and he has the second best shot after McCain, he must win in California.

2008 State Profiles: Virginia

As any student of political history knows, it has been a long time since Virginia has voted for a Democrat for president. In fact it has been since 1964. The state's mixture of fiscal, social, and military conservatives has made it a powerful state for Republicans for the past forty years. However, times are changing.

Since 2001, the Democrats have won most of the major statewide races. These were the governor's race in 2001 when Mark Warner won by roughly 6%, the governor's race in 2005 when Tim Kaine, a relatively liberal candidate, won by even more than Warner, and the 2006 Virginia Senate race in which Jim Webb unseated previously popular incumbent George Allen. Mark Warner's win, despite seemingly heralding this shift, actually is not a particularly good illustration of it.

Warner's 2001 victory was without winning the rapidly growing suburban counties in Northern Virginia of Prince William and Loudon. Instead, Warner won southwestern and south central rural counties en masse including Lee and Buckingham counties. He marginally carried important suburban counties including Henrico county, north of Richmond, and rather decisively carried Fairfax county outside of Washington D.C. by 10%. Warner focused heavily on the rural areas during the campaign, touting his moderate stance on gun control and even advertising during NASCAR events.

Tim Kaine's victory had a decidedly different character to it. Kaine did not hide his opposition to the death penalty, which is widely supported in Virginia. This was potentially problematic for rural social conservative voters, who by and large strongly favor the death penalty. Indeed, Kaine did not win the rural areas as these shifted heavily towards Republican Jerry Kilgore. However, Kaine more than offset these losses with decisive wins in the urban and suburban areas of Virginia. Kaine won Fairfax county, the largest in the state, by 20%, a massive improvement on Warner's victory in 2001. Furthermore, he also won Loudon and Prince William, two of the most rapidly growing counties in the country, by slim margins. These had not voted for a Democrat for any office in a competitive race in years. He also expanded Warner's margin in Henrico county, and reduced the Republican margin in the southern Richmond suburbs of Chesterfield county.

Kaine also improved the Democratic showings in southeastern Virginia with wins in previously heavily Republican Virginia Beach and Chesapeak City. Even while he got crushed in the rural portions of the state, the gains he made in these suburban areas more than offset his losses elsewhere as he expanded on Warner's victory margin, albeit slightly.

Webb's narrow upset over George Allen once again confirmed these trends of the populous parts of Virginia shifting rapidly to the Democrats while the rural areas continue to drift more Republican. Webb won Fairfax by 19 points and carried Loudon and Prince William once again, though he did a full 5.5% worse statewide than Kaine did. This indicates that even with a stronger overall Republican vote statewide, these counties are trending Democratic. Webb won very little in the southwestern portions of Virginia and got creamed in the Shenandoah Valley. Allen defeated Webb in Henrico county narrowly and crushed him in Chesterfield by 18 percent. However, Webb's big wins up north, particularly in Arlington and Alexandria gave him a 60% to 40% win in the decisive region of Northern Virginia, cancelling out very weak showings in rural Virginia.

On the presidential level, the seemingly large shift of northern Virginia in the direction of the Democrats has yet to be seen. However, in 2004, John Kerry was the first Democrat since Lyndon Johnson to win critical Fairfax County and Virginia proved to be his best showing in the south outside of the atypical Florida. Additionally, Bush's margins in Prince William and Loudon counties dropped between 2000 and 2004 by mid single digits.

One thing that appears to be driving Virginia's shift to the left is the abundance of postgraduates in the state. 24% of Virginia voters in 2006 were postgraduates versus 18% nationwide. This percentage is also far higher than all other southern states. These voters are concentrated in the north and vote overwhelmingly Democratic. Jim Webb won 57% of the vote from this growing group. This correlates nicely with the other trend which is that income earners over $100,000 in income are becoming increasingly Democratic in the state. Webb lost voters with less than $100,000 in income by 2 points and won those with over $100,000 by 6 points.

At the margins a growing Asian and Latino vote is making an impact. The two groups together make up about 10% of Virginia's population and yet only 5% of the electorate in 2006. However, they vote overwhelmingly for the Democrats with nearly 70% voting for Webb, providing more than his margin of victory. While whites are still around 75%(+ or - 3% from election 2004 to 2006) of Virginia's total electorate, they are only 70% of the total population. If voter turnout among non-whites, particularly Latinos and Asian-Americans rises, Republicans will have a hard time winning the state.

Secular voters are very critical to this new Democratic coalition in Virginia. 10% in 2006 professed no religious affiliation versus 7% in the South as a whole. While that does not sound significant, they voted 73% for Jim Webb. With Republicans in 2004 and 2006 carrying nearly 60% of the Protestant vote, this group is key to offsetting Republican strength among religious voters. Webb additionally reduced the Republican margin among Catholics from over 20% to just 2% while the Republican share among Protestants remained the same from 2004 to 2006. This trend has to be confirmed by this year's election as it may have been somewhat of an aberration.

There are a great many forces at work in Virginia that make it a competitive battleground state this year. With 13 electoral votes at stake, it is a critical state for both parties. While the Senate race between Mark Warner and Jim Gilmore(R) is pretty much a foregone conclusion, the presidential race is not.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2006/pages/results/states/VA/S/01/epolls.0.html
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/VA/P/00/epolls.0.html

Post-SC Thoughts

Well, with Hillary's 6 point win in Nevada, Romney's big win in Nevada, and McCain's narrow win in SC, I had a pretty good night with predictions. I thought Romney would place above Thompson in SC, but that didn't happen so this is the first contest he didn't get a "medal" in. Huckabee is in trouble since he didn't win tonight, though he finished respectably. McCain is now going to enter Florida like a steamroller. Rudy will be lucky to finish third behind him and Romney. After a poor finish I expect Rudy to drop out.

Huckabee will limp on to Feb. 5th and win some of those states. With Thompson likely to drop out I imagine he will do alright in the south, but not well enough. McCain will be the favorite in California, New York, and New Jersey with Rudy out. I also expect him to duke it out with Romney for Connecticut.

With those wins, McCain wins the Republican nomination. I will put up the detailed polling to support this.

Entrance Polls: Hillary with the lead

The entrance polls show Hillary leading among men and women, though much more among women. She has a 3% lead among men and 22% among women.

Those voting based on debate performance once again went to her by a big margin, similar to New Hampshire, which I discussed earlier. They went for Hillary by 21%.

Obama won Independents by 2%, less than I expected.

Significantly, Latinos broke for Hillary by 45%. African-Americans went for Obama by 58%. Huge racial divide.

Fascinating. http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/epolls/index.html#NVDEM