A new set of swing-state polls show Barack Obama narrowly ahead in three key swing states, all of which voted narrowly for John Kerry in 2004:

• The new Rasmussen poll of New Hampshire: Obama 47%, McCain 46%, within the ±4% margin of error.

• The new Rasmussen poll of Pennsylvania: Obama 48%, McCain 45%, within the ±4% margin of error.

• Meanwhile, a new University of Minnesota poll gives Obama 48% to McCain's 38% -- but the pollster's analysis finds that McCain could carry the state if he picks Governor Tim Pawlenty as his running mate.

All of these states voted for John Kerry in 2004 by margins of only one to three points, so expect them to be closely contested from now through November.

WSJ: Clinton's Convention Role Still Being Negotiated
The Wall St. Journal reports that negotiations are still ongoing over a serious issue for the Democratic convention: Will Barack Obama be nominated unanimously, or will Hillary Clinton's name be put to a vote in order to not alienate her supporters? "There's nothing symbolically wrong to putting her name in," said Donna Brazile, but the danger is that an overly-enthusiastic reception would make Obama look like he hadn't unified the party.

Obama In Red State Of Georgia Today
Barack Obama will continue his efforts to win red states with a visit today to Powder Springs, Georgia, where he will hold a town hall on economic issues. Georgia used to be one of the Democratic-leaning states in the South, but has turned sharply Republican over the last six years with a GOP takeover of the governorship, both Senate seats and the state legislature.

McCain Courting Latino Voters Today
John McCain will be speaking today to the League of United Latin American Citizens convention in Washington, a part of his campaign's effort to improve the Republican Party's standing among Latino voters. "When you take the solemn stroll along that wall of black granite on the national Mall, it is hard not to notice the many names such as Rodriguez, Hernandez, and Lopez that so sadly adorn it," McCain will say, according to pre-released excerpts.

NYT: Obama Making Headway With Big-Money Donors, Too
The New York Times reports that Barack Obama's fundraising prowess is expanding beyond his small-donor base now that he's won the nomination. The campaign took in $5 million at a Hollywood fundraiser ten days ago, and last night the candidate was in Atlanta for a fundraiser that carried a minimum $2,300 ticket price.

Union Leader Challenges Obama To McCain's Town Halls
The New Hampshire Union Leader, the largest newspaper in this swing state, is joining in on John McCain's town-hall challenge to Barack Obama. "If Sen. Obama would meet the president of Iran without pre-conditions, he can surely find time to meet with Sen. McCain and New Hampshire voters," the Republican-friendly newspaper declares in this morning's editorial.

Former Clinton Spokesman Joins Fox News
Howard Wolfson, who served as Hillary Clinton's top campaign spokesman throughout her roller-coaster of a campaign, has joined Fox News as a contributor/commentator. "It's a huge audience, and it is important to have a strong, progressive voice on the network," Wolfson told the New York Times.

A new Rasmussen poll of New Hampshire gives Barack Obama a big lead in this swing state, which went narrowly to George W. Bush in 2000 and then switched to John Kerry in 2004.

The numbers: Obama 50%, McCain 39%. A month ago, Obama had only a 48%-43% edge.

Meanwhile, Rasmussen gives McCain a small lead in Nevada, which voted for Bush twice: McCain 45%, Obama 42%, within the ± 4.5% margin of error.

New poll numbers just released by USA Today/Gallup find that John McCain has taken a sizable national lead over second-place Mike Huckabee -- a suggestion that his New Hampshire victory, combined with all the media talk about his comeback, have provided him with a big national lift:

Republicans:

McCain: 33%, up from 19% a week ago.

Mike Huckabee: 19%, down from 25%.

Rudy Giuliani: 13%; down from 20%.

Mitt Romney: 11%; up from 9%.

Fred Thompson: 9%; down from 12%.

Rep. Ron Paul: 3%; down from 4%.

Meanwhile, the poll also finds that Hillary has jumped 12 points to regain a national lead comparable to the one she enjoyed in some polls before her Iowa loss:

Democrats:

Clinton: 45%; up from 33%.

Obama: 33%, unchanged.

John Edwards: 13%; down from 20%.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich: 1%; down from 3%.

In order to better understand last night's Democratic primary, you really need to check out this map of the results made by Nicholas Beaudrot:

(Click picture to enlarge.)

The towns that went for Hillary Clinton are in shades of green, while Barack Obama's towns are in shades of purple. Beaudrot's interpretation is that Obama put together a "'Bill Bradley Plus Coalition': wealthy liberals, young voters, people of color, and as many middle class ($50,000-$100,000) voters as you can get."

Of course, Bill Bradley also lost the New Hampshire primary when he ran. And in Obama's case, there weren't any minority voters in sufficient numbers who could have given him that extra push over the top.

Mitt Romney's campaign has put out a new memo/press release in the wake of his second-place loss in New Hampshire, making the case that he's not licked yet and in fact has "a clear path to victory going forward." Notably, the release points out John McCain's weaker performance among core Republicans, arguing that this will catch up to him in later, more exclusively-Republican contests:

Note that Gov. Romney actually beat John McCain among Republicans yesterday (35%-34%) and most of the upcoming primaries and caucuses attract an electorate far more Republican than New Hampshire's. Yesterday's results also show that most independents will choose the Democratic ballot in open primary states.

The full release is available after the jump.

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One particular pollster, New Hampshire-based American Research Group, has perhaps the most interesting explanation for how they got their state's Democratic result wrong. ARG put up a statement up on their site, saying the following:

While we missed the final number that Clinton would make in New Hampshire, our polling was one of only two daily polls that showed Clinton regaining support following her drop in New Hampshire the day after the Iowa Democratic caucus. Clinton was moving up in the final days and hours before the primary, and our polls and the Rasmussen polls were the only daily polls to catch Clinton's rebound.

...

Our polls missed the final Clinton number, but we did not miss the strong swing back among women reacting favorably to Clinton that started after the debate and continued with her comments in Portsmouth. We did not have a polling problem, we just ran out of time.

It is true, actually that ARG showed Hillary closing the gap. Their second-to-last poll had her down by 11 points — while the final one had her down by 9. Keep in mind that these were not composites of samples over three days, as in the case of John Zogby, but were instead conducted over 24-hour periods.

Congratulations, ARG.

The Tears are now officially an issue in Campaign 2008.

Obama's national campaign co-chair, Jesse Jackson, Jr., just went on MSNBC and appeared to question Hillary's tears, which he called "tears that melted the Granite State," adding that those tears "moved voters."

He also suggested that Hillary was crying about "her appearance."

Take a look...

Here's one key quote:

...there were tears that melted the Granite State. And those are tears that Mrs. Clinton cried on that day, clearly moved voters. She somehow connected with those voters.

But those tears also have to be analyzed. They have to be looked at very, very carefully in light of Katrina, in light of other things that Mrs. Clinton did not cry for, particularly as we head to South Carolina where 45% of African-Americans who participate in the Democratic contest, and they see real hope in Barack Obama.

And:

We saw something very clever in the last week of this campaign coming out of Iowa, going into New Hampshire, we saw a sensitivity factor. Something that Mrs. Clinton has not been able to do with voters that she tried in New Hampshire.

Not in response to voters -- not in response to Katrina, not in response to other issues that have devastated the American people, the war in Iraq, we saw tears in response to her appearance. So her appearance brought her to tears, but not hurricane Katrina.

Asked if he was suggesting that The Tears were faked, Jackson said: "I wouldn't say that."

So it appears that Jackson's point is that Hillary hasn't proven able to show the same level of emotion about the problems facing our country that she did in response to a question about her looks.

This has already gotten a bit of attention, but it's worth a look. The Obama campaign has a new campaign memo out from campaign manager David Plouffe that contains some new fundraising numbers, offers the campaign's take on yesterday's loss and lays out the game plan for the days ahead.

On the campaign's loss, the memo says that the Obama camp succeeded in "taking the once inevitable frontrunner down to the wire in her firewall state."

On fundraising:

In the 4th Quarter of 2007, our campaign raised $23.5 million – over $22.5 million of which is for the primary election. In that quarter, we added 111,000 new donors for a total of 475,000 donors in 2007.

In the first 8 days of 2008, we raised over $8 million and gained 35,000 new donors. Since midnight last night, we have raised another $500,000 online.

Full memo, including staffing detail and the Obama camp's view of the coming primaries, after the jump.

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Amidst all the hand-wringing by pollsters over how they managed to get New Hampshire so amazingly wrong, John Zogby has put out a press release containing an interesting piece of information: The last one-day sample of his three-day tracking poll showed Hillary closing the gap in a big way -- but the sample was too small to be published on its own:

My polling showed Clinton doing well on the late Sunday night and all day Monday – she was in a 2-point race in that portion of the polling. But since our methods call for a three-day rolling average, we had to legitimately factor the huge Obama numbers on Friday and Saturday – thus his 12 point average lead. Unfortunately, one day or a day–and–a–half does not make a trend and we ran out of time.

Okay, so Zogby's got his story, and he's sticking to it. But what's the excuse for all the other polls that were using one or two-day samples? That list includes American Research Group, Suffolk and Marist — and they got it wrong, too.

Hillary hit the morning shows today to tout her victory, and on NBC's Today Show she said that the turning point came when she hit back emotionally at Obama and Edwards during the Saturday debate:

"It was the first time that the leading candidates actually were asked some very pointed questions about what we stand for, what we’ve done to help other people, what our accomplishments are and what we want to do for the future."

As we noted below, the exit polls show that Hillary gained ground on Obama by doing well among voters who made their decision in the last few days, suggesting a major role for the debate.

But the exit polls also show that Hillary did even better among voters who made their decision yesterday. This suggests that the The Tears allowed her to "win the final news cycle," as the political pros like to put it, and that this was perhaps at least as instrumental as the debate in helping her win, as galling as that is.

So what should we make of John McCain's New Hampshire victory last night? What does it suggest for McCain about the road ahead?

Unquestionably, it left the GOP race wide open, gave a new credibility to McCain's once-moribund candidacy, and put him back on a track that could lead to the nomination. Nonetheless, a close look at the exit polls and the demographics of his victory reveals that a host of hidden dangers lie ahead for him in the upcoming primary and caucus states.

For one thing, McCain's percentages of both the Republican and independent voting blocs were lower than they were in 2000, according to CNN's exit polls. That year he won 38% of the Republican vote and 62% of the independent vote, for a 49% victory overall. This year, it was only 34% of the GOPers and 40% of the indies, for 37% overall.

This is significant for the upcoming races because he'll need GOP base support in upcoming Republican-only primaries in many states — and suggests that his work on immigration reform, among other things, has significantly eroded his support among that demographic. It also suggests that his traction with independent voters wasn't what it was in 2000 — a key constituency for McCain in other states.

And that's not all.

Read more »

Here are a couple of interesting numbers from the exit polls that shed a bit of light on Hillary's surprise victory over Obama last night.

Among voters who made up their minds yesterday, Hillary beat Obama by 39%-36%, suggesting that the last news cycle of the contest might have played a decisive role in shifting votes Hillary's way. Yes, I admit it -- I'm talking mainly about the wall-to-wall coverage of The Tears, which were effectively the last close look at Hillary these voters had before entering the voting booths.

Meanwhile, among voters who made up their minds in the last three days, Hillary also gained ground, coming in only one point behind Obama, 36%-37% -- numbers that are way out of sync with the big lead Obama had in polls over the weekend and yesterday.

Since Hillary had a relatively solid lead of 41%-37% over Obama among voters who had already made up their minds before last weekend, the late-deciding voters enabled her to regain enough ground to win.

Hillary spokesman Howard Wolfson went on MSNBC moments ago and articulated the Hillary camp's spin on her victory: New Hampshire voters saw the real Hillary, and "they liked what they saw."

This is going beyond just her Tears moment. Camp Hillary is saying that in a variety of ways -- at the debate on Saturday, where Hillary hit back emotionally against John Edwards and Barack Obama; and in Hillary's willingness to engage reporters in question and answer sessions over the last few days -- Hillary has revealed herself in new ways to voters, and it's paid off.

The relief in the Hillary campaign is palpable tonight. This might be not only because she won, but because the campaign has solved a larger problem: They've been searching for a way to introduce the real Hillary to voters, and now that she has finally opened up to them -- both by design and by accident -- the voters decided that they liked her.

Hillary may have won tonight, upending the calculus of just about everyone, but John Edwards wants you to know that he's going to be part of the equation no matter what -- in his concession speech tonight, he says there's no way he's not staying in the race through the convention:

In a major upset, Hillary wins the New Hampshire primary, says MSNBC and the Associated Press.

More in a sec.

Late Update: It had absolutely nothing to do with The Tears.

With 61% reporting, it's:

Hillary 39%

Obama 36%

Edwards 17%

No, it's not because of The Tears.

With 52% reporting, it's:

Hillary 39%

Obama 37%

Edwards 17%

The pundits are saying that Hillary's stronger-than-expected showing thus far is all because of The Tears. I'm going to suggest that it has little to nothing to do with this at all. Discuss.

With 42% reporting, the race is tightening:

Hillary 39%

Obama 37%

Edwards 17%

With 32% reporting, it's:

Hillary 40%

Obama 36%

Edwards 17%

The changes in Hillary's campaign staff in the wake of her travails are underway -- and every tiny sign of movement is being pounced on by reporters.

The Washington Post reports that longtime Hillary confidante Maggie Williams is set to come in and occupy a role akin to campaign manager. No sign yet of what this means for current manager and equally loyal Hillary confidante Patti Solis Doyle.

Meanwhile, The Times reports that a long-time Clinton pal, Texas advertising exec Roy Spence, is being brought in to do...something or other. The Times also gives us a great deal of detail about an allegedly significant conference call that's supposed to happen sometime after tonight's primary.

Suffice it to say that this is some pretty fine-grained reporting. But I suppose it does tell us that the Hillary staff shakeup is sort of underway.

Here's a picture of how the independent votes are shaking out in New Hampshire.

Election Central just spoke to Paul Bergeron, the city clerk for the state's second-largest city, Nashua. Bergeron told us that independent voters are breaking much more for the Democrats than the Republicans when they're requesting ballots, and as a result many of the wards have called him up to ask for more Dem ballots to be delivered.

The story about ballots running low isn't a sign of being unprepared per se — rather, the separate party ballots were originally distributed based on estimates of past voting behavior for each primary, with more than enough to handle a huge turnout. But with independents voting Democratic by huge margins, they've ended up out-stripping the initial supply of Dem ballots that had been given out under those assumptions.

Who are the beneficiaries of this?

On the Democratic side, it's Barack Obama, who has squarely beaten Hillary Clinton among independents in all the opinion polls. For the Republicans, the winner would be Mitt Romney — because he wants indies moving out of the Republican primary and away from John McCain.

Hillary campaign co-chair Terry McAuliffe goes on MSNBC, seems to declare that the campaign's top officials will stay aboard in some capacity: "Everyone who is in the campaign today will be in the campaign," he says.

But he does say that the campaign will be bringing in more people, and won't say whether they'll be the new bosses, suggesting a possible shake-up is on the way...