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Tonight: The Pennsylvania Primary
Today is the big day: The Pennsylvania primary. Heavy turnout is expected for a race in which the candidates have been pummeling each other for six weeks, and long lines have already formed at voting stations.
Hillary Clinton is expected to win the primary, with the margin being the big question. If Barack Obama is able to keep it close, then Clinton will be unable to make much of a dent in either his delegate and popular vote leads.
The polls close at 8 p.m., with results set to come in soon afterwards. We'll be live-blogging the results here at TPM.
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I voted at 8am in West Chester. Nobody else was there, except for a guy without the proper ID (his drivers license had the wrong address). I had a paper ballot, which was a huge improvement in my mind over the electronic voting machines I'd used in Montgomery county and Philly.
April 22, 2008 9:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Obama wins PA by one and a half points. =
(Never miss an opportunity to be optimistic. :)
April 22, 2008 9:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Final Zogby poll has undecideds breaking for Clinton. Therefore, I predict Clinton wins by 4%-13%, with a median of 8%, and a delegate gain of 12. My associate Elliot predicts Clinton by 12%, and Al Giordano of The Field predictions Clinton by 4.5%. I lay out what scenarios are likely on Election Inspection.
April 22, 2008 9:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
The cities and suburbs will be reporting in first, so expect an Obama lead that will be taken over by the rural counties coming in for Clinton.
April 22, 2008 9:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Not so fast sparky. A la Missouri and Minnesota and Ohio and so many other mid-west states: Rural early, Urban late. Expect large Hilary leads early, with Obama catching up.
April 22, 2008 10:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
"If Barack Obama is able to keep it close, then Clinton will be unable to make much of a dent in either his delegate and popular vote leads."
I don't get it. Even if Hillary wins by 20%, which no one is expecting, she can't make much of a dent in Obama's lead. It's too late in the campaign for that.
And if Obama keeps it close, you know that she's not going to drop out, anyway. She's in this to the bitter - and I do mean BITTER - end. So what's the point of making a big deal about the margin of victory? It's not really going to make the slightest difference, is it?
I remain convinced that Hillary Clinton is running for 2012 now. To do that, she must make sure that the Democrats lose in November. After all, it's only what we deserve after declining her gracious offer to serve, right?
April 22, 2008 9:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, Hillary can't possibly win by a large enough margin to make a difference. Any suggestion to the contrary is wrong.
April 22, 2008 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
from Politico, here's where my hope lies in Obama keeping the margin tight:
support among younger voters—a group pollsters worry may not have been captured in recent surveys—will be turnout in places like State College, home to Penn State University’s main campus, or the precincts around smaller schools like Muhlenberg College in Allentown.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9772.html
April 22, 2008 9:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Probably telling for the popular vote, but not for the overall delegate distribution, no?
April 22, 2008 10:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
I have a hunch that newly registered voters are a major unknown (in the eyes of MSM). If the apportionment models used by pollsters are off in terms of geography or likelihood of newly registered voters, then that may translate into wild swings for certain districts. I have a hunch that turnouts in Philly and Pittsburgh will BE the BIG story tomorrow. I'll be curious to hear anecdotes throughout the day.
April 22, 2008 10:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Today means a lot for Pennsylvania, in that they are getting to take part in the primary and good for them, because voting this year has been a lot of fun.
Other than that, I have little interest. Unless Hillary wins by twenty and it's somehow such an influential twenty that it dents the delegate counter in unexpected ways, today is more political theater, more goalposting and delaying of the inevitable.
Meanwhile, McCain has grown horns and is beginning to fly overhead.
April 22, 2008 10:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Let's just hope all the young males in Pennsylvania (old ones too, for that matter) don't spend so much time tracking down racy pics of Miley Cyrus that they don't get around to voting...
April 22, 2008 10:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Obama rhymes with Osama, I can't vote for him. I'm a rhyming-issues voter.
April 22, 2008 10:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
No, you're wrong - she will drop out. You know why? She doesn't have any money. She's broke. Her donors are maxxed out. She's getting ready to get her ass sued by creditors.
You cannot keep running a campaign that is running in the RED.
April 22, 2008 10:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
McCain did. Romney did (for a while). They'll pay for it themselves if they have to. I don't believe that Hillary would drop out over money. She'll borrow and beg and she'll go into debt, but she'll stay in. Like Romney, they can afford to blow it, so why not?
April 22, 2008 10:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
It will appear unseemly, that during the ongoing slug fest, everyone knows she's running on fumes.
April 22, 2008 11:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Are you implying the "appearing unseemly" might influence what the Clintons did at this point.
Come on now.
April 22, 2008 11:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with JWeb here. She has been in the red for the better part of two months now. If financial realities were a concern for her, she would already be out. As such, I think that we have to conclude that such matters are not a concern for her.
April 22, 2008 11:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
All I can say is, today cannot end soon enough. I'm sorry, Pennsylvania, no offense intended, but I'm thoroughly sick of hearing about you. At least, if this thing gets dragged on through the mud in Indiana and North Carolina, we'll get some new town names for the same old stories.
Meanwhile, I'll be praying for a miracle upset that will allow Obama to "obliterate" Clinton's campaign. And I mean that in the literal "erase from memory" sense of the word.
April 22, 2008 11:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Is anyone else worried about who is counting the votes like I am? Can someone reasure me that everything will be ok. For the most part I try to put that in the back of my mind, but its still their?
April 22, 2008 1:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
there!
April 22, 2008 1:17 PM | Reply | Permalink