Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Obama Still Has The Momentum


Tuesday night, Barack Obama scored a huge victory in Winconsin. The polls had told us the race was tightening in Wisconsin. They were wrong again. With 92% of the vote counted in that state, Obama has a 17 point lead (58% to 41%).

Even more worrying for Clinton is the fact that Obama continues to grab large portions of the demographics that were supposed to be solidly for Clinton -- women, those without a college education, those making less than $50,000, older voters, etc.

This does not bode well for Clinton. We are now less than two weeks away from Texas and Ohio, and voters in nearly every catagorey are trending toward Obama. The only group that is still hanging in with Clinton is older women.

Texas and Ohio are now more important than ever for Clinton. I don't really know much about Ohio, but I could easily see Obama scoring a win in Texas and coming out with at least a small majority of the delegates there. Frankly, we're beginning to run out of states, and I can hear the proverbial fat lady warming up her vocal cords for that final aria.

As far as delegates go, Obama has widened his lead in pledged delegates 1140 to 1005. That's a lead of 135 pledged delegates. I know that Clinton is counting on superdelegates to give her the win, but if Obama continues to widen his lead in pledged delegates, I believe the majority of superdelegates will probably go along with that trend. I think they know it would be a mistake to go against the will of the majority.

Once again, Democrats in general were the biggest winners of the night. After over 90% of the vote had been counted they held a 5 to 2 ratio in turnout over the Republicans. So far, this has been true in nearly all the states.

It will be interesting to see how the Democratic turnout compares to the Republican turnout in Texas on March 4th. Texas is one of the reddest states. If the Democratic turnout approaches or exceeds the Republican turnout there, it could be a very very good November for Democrats.

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