Tonight should be it. The lingering concern with Obama was his inability to seal the deal, and his constant backward movement in the final days of campaigns as undecided voters broke 60-40 to Clinton. Tonight, regardless of how Indiana ends up, Obama outperformed the polls in both states and it seems the late deciders slightly went his way. That's the one thing he really needed to prove he could do in a state where both competed, and he did it in both Indiana and North Carolina tonight.
A few counties breaking for Obama have only reported 40 - 60%, so there's a lot more votes to count. Pretty much all of Hillary's counties have reported 100%.
I agree - it certainly gives Clinton her first logical opportunity to drop out if she chooses to do so (it didn't make sense to do it after winning TX/OH/PA even though the math was against her). It looks like she's focusing on FL/MI, though. There's a committee meeting May 31st, so unless the Supers move in mass this week, I think we're going at least until then. We'll see, though.
Wow if that's true, this thing could be over with finally. His speech in NC just now sounded like a man ready to go to battle with the republicans. For the first time I have an at peace feeling that this battle with Hillary may finally be coming to an end. Good day for Barack, everything appears to be back under control.
Oh, I agree she'll stay in until the week of June 3, and it's understandable. I just meant tonight is the night when any lingering doubt about the nomination can be put away, imo. Even if Florida and Michigan somehow are overturned and go her way, she'd still trail fairly significantly in the delegate count -- and tonight pretty much eliminated the only legitimate case she had to appeal en masse to the supers.
Take this from someone who was born and raised in Indiana, the state is still in play. Two of the large northwest counties (which Obama will win handily) have still reported at 0%. Marion county has only reported 67% and Obama leads by 65/35. The rural counties favoring Hillary are almost all 100% reported. Whichever network called it for Clinton made a mistake. It's too early. Late votes from Gary have swung many close statewide elections over the years.
I think I've said this before, but CNN's online site is ridiculously helpful. The fact that you can easily track county by county numbers and %'s reporting is great. For those of you who haven't seen it: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/state/#IN The numbers from 2000 were about 120,000 Lake County voters for Kerry in 2004. If that many people vote this time (unlikely - but Indianapolis was close to its 2004 totals), and Obama wins that 67-33%, that's a nearly 40,000 vote swing.
2000 census has it 84% black. Considering its proximity to Chicago and its demographics, and the percentage of the African-American vote that Obama typically pulls, it will end up playing a huge, maybe even decisive, role in the Indiana race. I don't think Hillary will be making her Indiana victory speech tonight anytime soon, if at all.
My prediction is the margin in Indiana will be <1%. The nation will get an education on Indiana voting patterns and how the different time zones throw people off. I remember times where winners weren't announced until near midnight because of the very late Gary vote counting. IMO, Obama is going to win Indiana. Very dumb, premature mistake by CBS. It's hard for me to believe they don't have correspondents that aren't familiar with how Indiana voting works. If Hillary "wins" the margin will probably be statistically insignificant.
WOW the northwest corner of Indiana is still at 0%. High percentage of blacks and right next door to chicago. This is really interesting and I agree, CNN's map is awesome. I'd love to see Obama pull this state out as well. T_J and BigTexx faint.
Oh, we were having such a nice, adult thread without them in here. You may want to sneak over to their place and delete the voice mail you just left them before they can join the party...
State-specific idiosyncrasies like this are part of why I love American politics. Thanks for your interesting perspective here.
Looks like there were 3 bomb threats at Obama campaign offices in Indiana. Is this going to be a problem as we near the general election? http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i44gg2bbRqtgiMH1V0tsickBx3TwD90GDDP00
There you go. John King of CNN says officials in Lake County may not report results until midnight. For me, it is great to see Indiana get it's 2 hours of fame. Hillary may as well give her speech now. It's gonna be 2-3 more hours.
She has to be huddled with her campaign trying to figure out what to say. Even if this margin holds (and Gary makes that unlikely), this has clearly been Obama's night. Halperin reported that her plan was to unambiguously pledge to carry on and fight to the end. Even if Obama pulls out a win in IN tonight, I seriously doubt she's considering dropping out. But she has to be questioning the strategic wisdom of coming out to promise a vigorous, continuing fight -- especially when her primary audience is super delegates who have to be feeling better about Obama than they were two hours ago. I expect she's busy re-crafting her speech to center around a unified party but the need to let everyone vote. They have to be toning it down right now. They were not expecting this.
I haven't lived there in over 20 years, but trust me, there are people all over Indiana who are fed up with it. (I won't even get into the time-zone debate Indiana has had for an eternity. It's a thread topic by itself). But the late poll closing and slow vote counting in Lake county during close elections is a sore spot you kind of get used to like a chronically sore knee. I'm loving it this time because everyone will forget about Indiana after today/tomorrow. Maybe not if Obama pulls it out.
Basically, all that's left now is Lake County. Assuming about 120,000 voters, he needs to win it about 2:1 (CNN's 57% makes no sense). That would be a 40,000 vote net margin. Doubtful that it happens, but he did win Marion County (with Indianapolis) by a similar margin.
