Obama Wins In Illinois, Georgia
By Jennifer Parker
In the first win of what is expected to be a long night, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., defeated Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., in Georgia, a key Southern state, winning 86 percent to Clinton’s 13 percent, according to preliminary exit poll results.
A record turnout of African American voters, who account for just over half of registered Democratic voters in the states, surged to the polls and overwhelmingly voted for Obama.
Democratic voters cast ballots Tuesday in an historic and, for many, emotional presidential nominating contest that will produce either the first woman or the first African-American in the nation’s history to be elected the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee.
Despite the unprecedented 22 states holding Democratic polls, the high drama and elaborate network television coverage, this year’s extraordinary Super Tuesday is unlikely to finalize whether it will be Obama or Clinton leading Democrats into the 2008 general election battle for the White House.
Obama Wins Georgia
The Democratic race is a heated contest between Clinton, the former first lady whose commanding lead in key states had been winnowed by Obama, the charismatic senator who had mega-star supporters like Oprah Winfrey, Caroline Kennedy and California first lady Maria Shriver stumping for him this weekend.
Preliminary exit poll results suggest Obama’s message of “change” reasonated with Democratic voters today; they were twice as likely to say they are interested in the candidate who can best “bring needed” change over the candidate with the best experience and other attributes.
Meanwhile Hispanics and women — two key demographics targeted by Clinton — turned out in high numbers, according to preliminary exit poll results.
Clinton Versus Obama in Homestretch
But the final results may not even be known by the time most Americans go to bed. And those who are waiting for a clear frontrunner to emerge in the Democratic race could be waiting for months.
“They’re in a real dogfight,” Bill Carrick, a California-based Democratic strategist told ABC News.
“It’s really going to be about who can grind it out, who can raise money and stay in the game the longest.”
Both campaigns were managing expectations today, with Obama campaign manager David Plouffe defining victory as being “close” to Clinton in pledged delegates by the end of the night, reports ABC News’ David Wright and Sunlen Miller.
Meanwhile, Clinton’s chief strategist Mark Penn told reporters Obama could finish the day having won more delegates than Clinton but the campaign is confident they will maintain an overall delegate lead.
With the race tight in states across the country, Clinton and Obama are locked in a fierce battle for key delegates to August’s national party convention in Denver.
Battle For Delegates and Votes
With tight races in states like delegate-rich California, New Jersey, Missouri, Tennessee and Connecticut, both the Clinton and Obama campaigns have vowed to fight all the way to the convention.
“We’re both preparing for a long, drawn out affair,” Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said today. “If it goes through June, it goes through June.”
“We are looking at a fight that is going to go, as we’ve said, well beyond tomorrow, possibly decided in March, possibly decided in April, possibly not decided until the convention,” Clinton’s communications director Howard Wolfson said Monday.
In interviews on Tuesday morning, Clinton said she hopes to win the delegate war.
“Right now I am ahead in both the popular vote and in delegates; I hope I stay there,” Clinton told ABC News’ Robin Roberts today on “Good Morning America.”
At stake today are 1,681 convention delegates – 87 percent of the total needed to clinch the Democratic nomination.
Obama and Clinton are poised to split delegates in contests across the country because Democratic Party rules allocate most of the delegates proportionately. The delegates will be awarded to the contenders based on their shares of the popular vote.
“Right now between Clinton and Obama, she’s got a 60-vote delegate lead,” ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos told Diane Sawyer on GMA.
“If that lead goes below 60 tonight, if Barack Obama closes the gap, he’s going to have the edge,” he said. “If she gets [her delegate lead] over 125, she’s going to be hard to stop.”
Hot Races to Watch
On Tuesday afternoon, Obama attempted to lower expectations for tonight’s Super Tuesday results as he cast his balllot blocks from his South Side Chicago home.
“I still think Senator Clinton is the favorite. She had 20-30 point leads in many of these states, we’ve been closing some ground,” Obama said inside an elementary school. “My guess is we’ll have a good night and we’ll probably end up having a split decision.”
Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, cast their votes early this morning in Chappaqua, New York.
“It’s a very humbling and overwhelming experience to cast my vote today,” she said.
Clinton is also expected to prevail in her senatorial homestate of New York, the second biggest state to vote on Super Tuesday.
However, the New York senator is fighting to maintain her long-held lead in California, a diverse and populous state with 370 delegates – the most of any state.
Recent polls suggest Obama is surging in the state and his campaign got a boost over the weekend when his wife was joined by Winfrey, Shriver and Kennedy.
“Obama has tapped into something here in California with his change-oriented message,” Carrick said. “He speaks to the culture here of something new, young and fresh and that’s why he’s caught on at the end,” he said.
On Tuesday the Clinton campaign unleashed some star power of its own, with a robocall starring Oscar-winning endorsee Jack Nicholson.
“She never gives up, she never gives in and she’s battle-tested,” Nicholson says in the robo-call. “She’ll be a strong commander-in-chief, she has the experience to deal with the economic challenges we face as a nation today and in the future.”
In her neighboring state of New Jersey, Clinton hopes to prevail but polls suggest Obama could take a healthy chunk of the delegates there. Clinton is also expected to take Oklahoma, Tennessee and Arkansas, according to recent poll results.
Toss-up states include Connecticut Georgia, Massachusetts, Arizona and the bellwether state — Missouri.
Clinton also expects to do well in Massachusetts, though it’s unclear whether Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy’s endorsement of Obama will disrupt that plan. In Arizona, Clinton is hoping her advantage among Hispanic voters will push her over the top, but again, that race is too tight to call.
ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos said the states to watch tonight are Massachusetts, Missouri and California.
“These are all states where Hillary Clinton has had a big lead up to now,” Stephanopoulos said on “GMA. “If Barack Obama wins two out of three of those states he’s going to have the momentum, he’s going to be hard to stop.”
Final Pitch
The two candidates made their final pitches to voters Tuesday morning in dozens of satellite television interviews.
“With two wars abroad and a looming recession, people need a president who’s ready on day one to be commander in chief and to turn the economy around. We also need a candidate who will be able to win in November,” Clinton said on GMA.
Obama told ABC News’ Diane Sawyer: “We’re seeing that the American people are understanding, unless we change how things work in Washington – reduce the power of special interests and get our economy back on track – that a lot of people are going to be hurting.”
Both candidates are scrambling for votes and delegates today in one of the most hotly contested presidential nominating contests in the party’s history.
Many Democratic voters had to rethink their ballots when former Sen. John Edwards abandoned his presidential bid last week after failing to win one primary or caucus.
The race has ignited record Democratic voter turnout in the early primary and caucus voting states and today is expected to be no different.
But with high interest and two popular candidates, political analysts say it could be months before either Clinton or Obama emerges as the victor.
“This is going to go on for a while,” Carrick said. “It’s just going to be trench warfare.”
