Washington, Wisconsin, Hawaii

The last significant presidential primaries until March 4 will be held tomorrow our time: primaries in Wisconsin and Washington for both parties, plus caucuses in Hawaii for the Democrats. Discuss them at your leisure here.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

868 comments on “Washington, Wisconsin, Hawaii”

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  4. Can anyone explain what is actually happening here with respect to the Washington caucuses that were held back on the 9 Feb, and the primaries that are to held later today? I confess – I’m confused.

  5. After a little digging …

    Democrats are calling it a meaningless “$10 million beauty contest” and aren’t awarding a single delegate from the results. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, after giving heavy attention to the recent caucuses, are staying away. Even the Republican hopefuls, after their cat-fight here last weekend, aren’t showing much interest.

  6. Working on the platform that the Republican nomination is done and dusted – the only thing that matters here is the Wisconsin and Hawaii numbers. My projection is a win by Obama is both states. I figure Hawaii may be smaller margin but a win all the same and Wisconsin will be a re-run of Happy Days (as in the cool guy wins the day).

  7. Your not getting confused with Washington state as opposed to DC ? Im not sure which one is on…not following closely enough!

  9. davidoff, I would expect it to be the other way around – Obama lived in Hawaii until moving to California to attend Occidental College. He has the home ground advantage and will win at least 65-70% of the vote there. I’d expect him to win Wisconsin with a figure closer to 50-55%.

  10. Further ahead, polling in Texas is showing a real narrowing. CNN poll puts it Clinton 50%, Obama 48% (a statistical tie). Not good for Clinton.

  11. yes the Fonz is back

    Tomorrow’s primarys , more ‘happy days’ for the big O

    Wisconsin believe Obama 54/46
    Hawaii believe Obama 60/40 but on such a small sample %’s are meaningless

    After the last primary last week & in the middle of “champers”
    I predicted the massive Clinton Texas & Ohio Poll leads were a delusion

    & predicted Ohio Clinton 52/48 and Texas Clinton 52/49
    ….oh where is that ‘narrowing’

  12. Of the five leading polls listed in realclearpolitics, only one has Clinton ahead, and that poll is over a week old.

    Anyway, their average now has Obama 2% in front for the nomination. Looks like his momentum is still going.

  14. The only way these states make any difference at all is if Clinton wins one. Nobody is expecting her to, hell she left Wisconsin early (which is the only state she could realistically cause an upset.)

    It’s the expectations game: everyone expects Obama to win, so if he doesn’t it is going to hurt like hell.

    On a more interesting note… in Texas the RPC average has gone from 40-50.3% (Clinton’s way) on the weekend to 42-50.3, thanks to a new CNN poll which put the result at 50-48. I’m assuming CNN doesn’t include ‘undecideds’ in their polling or something?

    Either way, it is starting to tighten, and this is within the past week when Clinton has been campaigning there and he hasn’t.

  15. Steve, those results have to be the least useful opinion polls I’ve ever seen!

    There are two polls for Wisconsin:

    40 / 53
    49 / 43

    i.e, one easy win to Obama and one easy win to Clinton. Useless.

    There’s got to be a better way of doing these polls!

  25. Two conservatives, Romney and Huckabee, cuts each other’s throat,s allowing McCain to steal some narrow victories in winner-take-all states. Thus, more by good luck than good management, the Republicans have picked their most viable candidate.

    Meanwhile the Democrats are maintaining a long tradition by threatening to pluck defeat from the jaws of victory, even down to the Florida and Michigan schemozzles.

  26. Bonjour Bludgeurs, first let me express deep and ongoing gratitude to William of the West for providing us with a brand spanking new thread.

    Dept. of Relevance Deprivation, Land of the Free, Monday:
    After the fashion of world’s best practice YentFests, as their handlers weep, wail, gnash teeth and rend their garments, the sad and sorry saga of Schmuckens and The Huckster continues unrequited and unabated.
    http://news.yahoo.com/edcartoons/patoliphant;_ylt=Ajyg65VQd1EArfHbvOIJKwMl6ysC
    http://news.yahoo.com/edcartoons/bensargent;_ylt=Ajz1AzqOaYIehAd_Hd9csSFN_b4F

    Asanque at 16, Hillary has about as much chance of winning Hawaii as, say, an earnest and inexperienced amateur vulcanoligist would have had of corking Krakatoa circa 1883.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krakatoa
    N.B. Dr. Carr has emboldened me with regard to citing wiki as an authoritative source.

  27. Perhaps Hillary like Keating pre-1996 got bogged down in appealing to individual interest groups and trying to add up a 50%+1 coalition, Obama has followed Howard’s pre-1996 approach of a broad appeal.
    Phil: I suspect many of Huckabee’s voters would prefer McCain to Romney, even although Huckabee is now picking up hard-core McCain haters. neither McCain nor Huckabee are part of the ‘conservative movement’.

  31. Clinton once again has dropped herself into no-man’s land with this speech business.

    ‘The New Republic’s Noam Scheiber notes that “you can’t listen to a Clinton speech without hearing multiple riffs she’s filched from other candidates.” Back in November, he flagged her Obama lines, which ranged from hope and unity to sharing her aspiration to be a President not only for blue states, but the entire United States. In Iowa, Clinton pilfered Obama’s catch phrase “fired up and ready to go,” and lately she has also sounded like John McCain — they both tout a slogan about being “read to lead on Day One,” whatever that means.’

    http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters?bid=45&pid=286865

    She draw’s attention to Obama’s strength and her weakness, and gives his claim to be above squabbling more water.

  32. Anyone know what’s giong in NY?

    There’s a bunch of websites and news stories suggesting that Obama was robbed in New York and may actually have won the delegate count there. Aparantly in something like 80 disctrcits Obama recorded 0 votes. Including many very black districts.

    Is this an internet consiracy or a real developing story?

    Anyone know what’s going on?

  36. Very good ESJ. From the NYTimes below:

    ‘City election officials this week said that their formal review of the results, which will not be completed for weeks, had confirmed some major discrepancies between the vote totals reported publicly — and unofficially — on primary night and the actual tally on hundreds of voting machines across the city.

    In the Harlem district, for instance, where the primary night returns suggested a 141 to 0 sweep by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the vote now stands at 261 to 136. In an even more heavily black district in Brooklyn — where the vote on primary night was recorded as 118 to 0 for Mrs. Clinton — she now barely leads, 118 to 116.

    The history of New York elections has been punctuated by episodes of confusion, incompetence and even occasional corruption. And election officials and lawyers for both Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton agree that it is not uncommon for mistakes to be made by weary inspectors rushing on election night to transcribe columns of numbers that are delivered first to the police and then to the news media.

    That said, in a presidential campaign in which every vote at the Democratic National Convention may count, a swing of even a couple of hundred votes in New York might help Mr. Obama gain a few additional delegates.’

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/16/nyregion/16vote.html?_r=1&ref=politics&oref=slogin.

    I think that what this will do is put pressure on NY SDs like Charles Rangel, who have come out in support of Hillary, to respect their constituents when results from their areas swing to Obama’s column. It’s probably just confusion rather than anything too sinister, but it’s another distraction that Clinton doesn’t need right now.

  37. Pancho,

    And the counting in New Mexico was finalised in the last couple of days and California is apparently still counting – a couple of hundred votes does not a conspiracy make.

  38. Obama is accused of plagiarism. It was the BGs who sang that “It’s only words, and words are all I have to take your heart away”.

    Barack Obama’s lofty oratory landed him in trouble yesterday when a particularly memorable speech in Wisconsin turned out to be just a little too memorable – some observers recalled it all too well from the 2006 campaign of Massachussetts Governor Deval Patrick.

    http://timesonline.typepad.com/uselections/2008/02/barack-obamas-l.html

  43. There were also voting anomalies in New Hampshire, but that never eventuated into much of a story. I suspect as much in this case in NYC as well.

  44. Is that what I am reduced to “interjector” Pancho? Not even a member of the Bludger community?

    How very Thatcherite of you Pancho?

  50. #48
    My current numbers (which I used in the graph) are as follows (a positive number is the number of points advantage for Obama over Clinton).

    Hawaii, 4
    Wisconsin, 20
    Ohio, -8
    Rhode Isl., -10
    Texas, 4
    Vermont, 20
    Wyoming, 20
    Mississippi, 24
    Penn., -5
    Guam, 11
    Indiana, 7
    N. Carolina, 8
    W. Virginia, -12
    Kentucky, -14
    Oregon, 5
    Montana, 11
    S. Dakota, 15
    Puerto Rico, -9

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