Who Are the Expected Winners Tonight?

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Let me devote one paragraph to the Republicans right here at the beginning, and then I’ll likely ignore them for most of the night.

Mike Huckabee won Kansas by a three-to-one margin earlier today, a sign that in deeply conservative parts of the country (particularly those parts with lots of evangelicals) Republicans are not completely on board with McCain. He’s got some work to do in winning these people over. That said, his delegate lead is so massive that it would take a miracle for Huckabee to win. Huckabee, knowing this, told the Conservative Political Action Conference today, “I didn’t major in math. I majored in miracles, and I still believe in them.” Maybe he thinks conservatives will coalesce around him as the alternative to McCain, but I doubt it. He is a social conservative, but isn’t really an economic conservative. And he has no foreign policy credentials.

Okay. Republican results will come in for the caucus in Washington and the election in Louisiana. But unless something spectacular happens, I’m going to spend most of this lonely Saturday night blogging about the Dems.

So who has the advantage in the Democratic primaries today?

First off, what’s the playing field for the Dems? There’s a caucus in Nebraska, a caucus in Washington, and an election in Louisiana.

Let’s start with Louisiana. Half of the Democratic electorate is expected to be black, meaning that the demographics will mirror South Carolina and other Southern states that Obama has won. There has been no polling, but Obama has spent a lot of time in the state and has said all the right things about hurricane recovery, which, according to local reports, is the only issue in the Bayou State. Obama has also outspent Clinton in advertising there. Expect Obama to win handily.

Next, Nebraska. It’s a caucus state, which have gone almost universally for Obama in this primary season (presumably because (1) Obama’s supporters are more committed, (2) Obama organizes better than Clinton, and (3) there’s no Bradley Effect at work). Obama has also won almost all of the Mountain/Prairie primaries — he took 74% in neighboring Kansas on Super Tuesday, for example. Obama also has endorsements from the state’s two biggest Dems, Senator Ben Nelson and Omaha Mayor Mike Fahey. Again, expect an Obama victory.

Washington is another caucus state. It is the bluest state of the day, meaning more core Democrats for Hillary Clinton, but it also the only open primary on the slate, meaning independents can vote for Obama. There’s only been one poll in the state according to pollster.com, and it shows a double digit lead for Barack Obama. (By the way, early turnout reports say it’s going to be huge huge huge.)

So a sweep is possible for Obama. The Obama campaign’s internal delegate memo that was accidentally released to the press recently shows that Obama’s people expect to win all of the states today, and the Clinton campaign shot an email to reporters downplaying expectations. We’ll keep you posted.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate