Morning Update: Sweeps by Obama, McCain
Senators Barack Obama (D-IL) and John McCain (R-AZ) swept yesterday’s “Poto
mac primary” (CNN), winning contests in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. Obama’s wins nudged him past Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) in the race for delegates, although both have just more than half the number needed to win the nomination. McCain, meanwhile, is steadily amassing GOP support on the strength of his experience on national security issues, exit polls say.
Obama has now won eight straight nominating contests since Super Tuesday and is favored in upcoming polls in Hawaii and Wisconsin. Clinton is fixed on winning the delegate-rich states of Texas and Ohio on March 4. Obama’s victories seem to have come from “change voters,” with exit polls showing those voters outnumbered voters valuing experience by more than two-to-one in Maryland and Virginia. Voters also favored Obama on the economy—the biggest concern in both states—and for his position on Iraq, although both candidates favor an early withdrawal of U.S. troops.
Among Republicans, McCain’s performance in Virginia showed he continued to struggle to win over the party’s conservative and evangelical voters. Main challenger Mike Huckabee polled strongly among the state’s large number of social conservatives and won almost as many Republicans who said the economy was their chief concern. But McCain, a proponent of the U.S. military surge in Iraq, won strong backing of voters citing Iraq and terrorism as concerns (AP).
So far, the Democrats appear to be winning the turnout war (WSJ) among voters over the Republicans in the nominating process. In Virginia, Obama gained more than 600,000 votes, which was about a third more votes than McCain and Huckabee combined.
A new Daily Analysis examines the potential ramifications of yesterday’s vote.
February 13th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
All the candidates have their ideas on how to end the war or not end the war once they are in office. Along with all their other promises of course. Who are hypocrites and who are not? On http://www.hypocrisy.com, I found out just who are hypocrites.