Clinton, Obama Split States in Super Tuesday Contests (Update6)

By Kristin Jensen and Ken Fireman
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Feb. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama split victories on the biggest day of voting in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Clinton won Arkansas, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma and Tennessee, while Obama took Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, North Dakota and Utah, according to projections from television networks and the Associated Press.

Voters in 22 states participated in today's Democratic nominating contests; results are still being tallied. New York, Illinois and California are among the day's biggest prizes, though a candidate can take a portion of the delegates in any state without winning the contest there outright.

With the vote so closely matched, officials in both campaigns say they expect the battle for the nomination to extend beyond today's Super Tuesday balloting. Obama, an Illinois senator, and Clinton, a New York senator, had each won two of the four contested elections before today.

Obama, 46, who is vying to become the nation's first black president, was doing the best among African-American voters, men and voters under the age of 50, according to exit polls cited by MSNBC.

Obama got 80 percent of the black vote nationwide, compared with 17 percent for Clinton, according to the exit polls. Among whites, Clinton led 51 percent to 44 percent. Obama got 53 percent of men to Clinton's 42 percent. Clinton led among women who made up 57 percent of Democratic voters today, 51 percent to 46 percent, MSNBC said.

Latest Polls

Clinton, 60, was leading in polls of voters in most Feb. 5 states until Obama won a landslide victory in South Carolina on Jan. 26. In recent days, Obama, 46, had closed the gap with Clinton in a number of states or moved ahead; the two are also deadlocked in national polls.

Georgia was the first state to finish voting tonight, and Obama led there with 62 percent of the vote, compared with 35 percent for Clinton, with 70 percent of precincts reporting. About half the state's Democratic voters are black.

The Clinton campaign trumpeted its projected win in Massachusetts, where Governor Deval Patrick and Senators Edward Kennedy and John Kerry backed Obama. Clinton led in the state with 57 percent of the vote, compared with 40 percent for Obama, with 52 percent of precincts reporting.

`Big Deal'

The Massachusetts win was ``a very big deal,'' said Clinton spokesman Jay Carson. ``What we've seen tonight is what we've been predicting -- this is going to be a very close election,'' Carson said. ``There's a long way to go before we're going to have a nominee.''

Obama and Clinton were essentially tied in a poll of California voters released as balloting began there. The state's large population of Hispanic voters may help Clinton; exit polls cited by MSNBC showed that she was winning 61 percent of the Hispanic vote nationwide.

Clinton's campaign was already looking beyond today. Her top adviser earlier today called for weekly debates with Obama until March 4, when nominating contests are held in Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas and Vermont. Obama hasn't ruled out debates as the primary battle continues, said David Plouffe, his campaign manager.

A candidate needs 2,025 votes at the Democratic convention in August to win the nomination and Obama was leading in the number of delegates elected through primaries and caucuses. Before today, he had 63 to Clinton's 48, according to The Green Papers, a nonpartisan Web site that compiles election statistics.

Super Delegates

Clinton has an edge among so-called super delegates, Democratic officeholders and party officials who get a vote at the convention and aren't bound by election results. Coming into today, Clinton had 190 of those delegates in her corner, compared with 104 for Obama, according to The Green Papers.

``We expect to maintain our current overall lead in delegates on Feb. 6,'' Howard Wolfson, a top Clinton adviser, told reporters on a conference call yesterday. Wolfson predicted that the current round of voting would be ``inconclusive'' in singling out a front-runner for the nomination.

Plouffe, meanwhile, sent a memo yesterday to reporters saying he expected Clinton to still win California and a larger share of delegates because of ``her huge head start'' among the Super Tuesday states. ``If we were to be within 100 delegates on that day and win a number of states, we will have met our threshold for success,'' Plouffe said.

Obama won the first contest of the nominating race, with a victory in the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses. Clinton then won the Jan. 8 New Hampshire primary and Jan. 19 Nevada caucuses.

To contact the reporters on this story: Kristin Jensen in Washington at kjensen@bloomberg.net ; Ken Fireman in Washington at Kfireman1@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: February 5, 2008 22:23 EST

Exit poll results nationwide

By ALAN FRAM, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 19 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton was strongly supported by Hispanics and people seeking an experienced candidate, but Barack Obama was eating into her usual dominance of women and whites, in early national exit polls Tuesday. A coalition of black, young, white and higher-income voters were flocking to Obama.
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On the Republican side, preliminary data from exit polls of voters in 16 states showed Sen. John McCain getting strong support from moderates and people valuing experience and leadership. He and Mitt Romney were battling for an edge among party regulars, while Romney was getting strong backing from the GOP's most conservative voters and people wanting a strong stance against illegal immigrants.

Obama, an Illinois senator, was getting support from more than four in 10 women and about the same number of whites, leaving him just a few percentage points behind Clinton. That was a narrower deficit than he has faced in most states that have held nominating contests so far, with part of his strength coming from people under age 44, whom he was dominating.

In Oklahoma, a state Clinton won overall, there was no gender gap for her; she won among men and women. McCain won in New Jersey and Connecticut, where nearly half the voters were moderates and liberals who strongly support him. He also won in Illinois, a state dominated by conservative GOP voters, in part because Huckabee and Romney split most of the conservative vote, while the three rivals shared support from evangelicals.

Nationally, Obama was getting the backing of eight in 10 blacks, his usual margin. But Clinton, a New York senator, was countering with strong support from Hispanics, about six in 10 of whom were supporting her. Much of that strength came from Hispanic women and from the oldest Latino voters.

Obama was leading with liberals and had a modest advantage among white men, a group from which he has seldom received strong backing. Former Sen. John Edwards' decision to leave the race last week may have helped Obama with those voters.

Clinton had a clear lead with white women, with older white and Hispanic voters, and with lower educated people.

About half of Democrats across the country said they want a candidate who will change things. As usual Obama was that group's overwhelming favorite, getting about seven in 10 of their votes. About one-fourth preferred experience, and Clinton was garnering virtually all of their votes.

Half of Democrats also named the economy as the country's top issue. Of that group, Clinton was favored slightly. She also led with those citing health care, while Obama had an advantage with people most concerned about the war in Iraq.

The top issue for Republicans also was the economy, with four in 10 naming it. Those voters favored McCain, as did those citing Iraq and terrorism. Romney's advantage came with the one quarter who said illegal immigration was their No. 1 concern.

But on the economy, the message from GOP voters was mixed. On a separate question, Romney was cited as the candidate most trusted to manage the economy.

McCain, the Arizona senator, and Romney each had the support of nearly four in 10 people calling themselves Republicans. McCain has yet to win that group of voters in any GOP contest this year, though he has tied for the lead among them before. He led among independents — a consistent McCain strength — though Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, was not far behind.

McCain had more than a 2-to-1 edge over Romney among GOP moderates. Romney was compensating by getting about half the votes of people calling themselves very conservative, twice the number backing Huckabee. McCain had about one-fifth of those votes.

Those preferring a candidate with strong leadership over agreement on the issues, and looking for experience, were tilting strongly toward McCain. But nearly half of Republicans were looking for a candidate who shares their values. Romney led with that group.

Romney also had four in 10 votes from Republicans who want to deport illegal aliens, for a clear lead over McCain.

Huckabee, who has trailed McCain and Romney overall in recent national polls, had one-third of the votes of white, born-again and evangelical Christians, giving him a slight lead in that category over his rivals.

The preliminary results came from exit polling by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International conducted for The Associated Press and television networks. The partial samples came from more than 400 precincts across 16 states with primaries on Tuesday.

Included were interviews with 10,926 Democratic primary voters and 7,087 GOP voters. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 1 percentage point for Democrats and 2 points for Republicans.