Pennsylvania Democratic primary live

This post will be progressively updated to follow the count in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary, starting from when I get out of bed (by which time it might well be all over). Real Clear Politics’ poll average shows a slight narrowing in Hillary Clinton’s lead since last week, from 47.4-40.4 to 49.5-43.4.

11.30am AEST. CNN reports Clinton leads 53-47 with 20 per cent of precincts counted. Their exit poll, if I’m reading it correctly, points to a result of about 52-48. They called it a “win” for Clinton about half an hour ago, for what that’s worth.

12.30pm. Clinton has just given a speech to claim victory of one kind or another: she now leads 54-46 with 75 per cent of precincts reporting.

12.50pm. As Obama gives his speech, the CNN’s count clicks over to 55-45 with 78 per cent of precincts reporting. They are giving Clinton 52 delegates to Obama’s 36 on television, but their web page is holding back on 37-31.

2.20pm. With 98 per cent of precincts reporting, Clinton’s has a lead of 54.8-45.2, which is at the higher end of market expectations.

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.

1,387 comments on “Pennsylvania Democratic primary live”

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  2. GG

    #1350

    GG , the Obamabots even when its on uncensored tape still distort the truth
    Listen to it yourself & give us your opinion

    Her answer was to ONLY one question ‘what would you do if Iran nuked Israel’ including the fact the US would be able to obliterate Iran NOT that the US
    would obliterate Iran just because Iran possesed nukes and this was all in one answer to ‘what would do if Iran nuked’

    Pancho 1346
    was that she would “totally obliterate them” even if they merely “consider” launching an attack on Israel.’
    http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2008/04/iran-considerin.html

  3. The Saudi based Arab News?

    Your allies say this about your President and you don’t nuke ’em?

    “It demonstrates the same doltish ignorance that has distinguished Bush’s foreign relations”

    …hmm, ‘distinguished’ is being used in the pejorative I guess?

    “Doltish ignorance”? Hillary’s using the same brand of Neocon Fear Mongering, just add incendiary rhetoric, false ‘intelligence’ and the world’s biggest military, and you too can get bogged down in a country that just might not want your peculiar brand of ‘liberation’.

    She’s shameless.

  5. 1347
    HarryH

    Oh, another signed up Neocon camp follower eh?

    And Growler quotes him to prove what exactly?

    Methinks Growler is having a wee identity crisis?

    When are you coming out as a card carrying uber-rightwing Neocon Growler?

    When you’re the last person to know, eh? Funny or what?

    Well spotted HH, and don’t mind GG’s feigned derision, it’s his mask, he’s just trying to be butch before he has to come out as just another armchair warrior.

  6. KR – salah, salah, salah. As usual, barking up the WRONG tree. I asked: [Has anyone seen the Rev wright’s latest public appearance?] who said anything about an interview. The PBS interview was more like a love-in. More later ………

  9. Meanwhile Jimmy Carter continues to be the conscience of his nation’s foreign policy:

    “Through more official consultations with these outlawed leaders, it may yet be possible to revive and expedite the stalemated peace talks between Israel and its neighbors. In the Middle East, as in Nepal, the path to peace lies in negotiation, not in isolation.”

    I guess that’s why he’s backing Obama.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/28/opinion/28carter.html?hp

  10. Finns, I think Codger gazumped you @ 1345.

    Have you given any more thought to the foreign policy differences between Clinton and McCain?

  11. 1354
    Greensborough Growler

    In case you failed to read or comprehend it, I’ll put up the core of the argument about ‘those maps’:

    What’s this tell us?

    It tells us that Obama’s base is stronger: “strong” and “weak” Dem add up to 172 for Clinton, and 211 for Obama. We have to play less defense.

    With Obama, McCain’s base is weaker: 226 EVs versus Clinton, and 178 versus Obama.
    These two data points alone are worth the price of admission for Obama. With him as our nominee, Democrats have a larger safe base, and Republicans have a smaller one. But what about the contested states?

    More Democratic states are at risk with Clinton. In the “barely Dem” category, Clinton has double the EVs — 117 to 58. What’s more, the “tied” state — Wisconsin, is a Blue state. So with Clinton, we have 127 EVs that are in weak hands.
    With Obama, however, we have only 58 “barely Dem” EVs, and the tied states, North Carolina, is a Red state.

    Obama puts more pressure on McCain states: With Obama, McCain has 76 “barely GOP” EVs compared to 13 against Clinton. Put another way, best case scenario where our candidates take all the states in their column and “barely GOP” columns, Obama ends up with 360 EVs, while Clinton would get 312. Obama has far higher ceiling.

    Obama Holds the Kerry states better: This is related to the “base states” stuff above. The only Kerry state Obama currently loses is New Hampshire. On the other hand, Clinton loses Michigan, New Hampshire, and ties in Wisconsin. Furthermore, Obama has three Kerry states in the “barely” category — Michigan, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. Clinton has six — Washington, Oregon, Minnesota, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Hawaii. That means that Clinton is losing or barely holding on to 9 Kerry states (out of 19), compared to four for Obama.
    Democratic numbers versus McCain are currently artificially depressed because of our long-running primary. But despite that disadvantage, Obama still runs a far broader, map-changing campaign than Clinton.

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/4/24/113851/565/912/502497

    …I think you should really try and read the whole thing, I know it’s hard for you to actually grasp the argument, but it outlines a fundamental shift in the game. Obama is a bigger threat to McCain’s base and is closer to running the Republicans out of town.

    Now, tell us you don’t want that so we know which side you’re really batting for!

  13. GG – reading between the lines, that is one vote you can count in Obama’s column. Carter has made the same point several times over the past months.

  14. Oh well Ferny, only all of Carter’s family, and as Carter himself says:

    “World opinion is strongly supportive of Obama, that’s all we hear,” he reiterated.

    But what is the world press saying about Clinton’s good impersonation of ‘doltish ignorance’?

    Cheers and applause, I guess! LOL

  16. To quote the man himself:

    “Speaking to local reporters Wednesday on a trip to Nigeria, the former Democratic president noted that Barack Obama had won his home state of Georgia and his hometown of Plains.

    “My children and their spouses are pro-Obama. My grandchildren are also pro-Obama,” he said at a news conference, according to the Nigerian newspaper This Day. “As a superdelegate, I would not disclose who I am rooting for, but I leave you to make that guess.”

  17. KR,

    I already conceded they had to be neocon numbers. This was a given, because your champion is behind.

    But wait, once you infuse the results with your perjorative assumptions and overlay the results with a smear of Clinton, you can then write off the inconvenient facts and fill the gap with fluffy half truths. And, voila the wishful thinkists’ Obama result emerges.

    Obama is in front because he is behind! So obvious!

    The Pro-Obama cacophony of chattering cretins will no doubt applaud another perversion of the facts.

    George Orwell had you in mind when he cast Big Brother in 1984!

  21. 1367
    Greensborough Growler

    Your own logic is that Hillary is in front of the nomination race because she is behind!

    But no matter.

    Let’s unpack it for you, as you seem incapable of it yourself:

    This NOT about who has actually won the most delegates so far. That ain’t in contention, at least not for the rest of us.

    This is about a series of state polls, yes polls, with all their caveats and differences in methodology, but let that pass.

    The results, taken as simple figures for total delegates show a marginally bigger lead for Hillary against McCain.

    Now, let’s remember, this is even before anyone is the actual nominee for the Democrats, so let’s not get too carried away with champagne just yet.

    But, if you unpack the states, look at the individual races, what you see is that CLinton is running the old Democrat race, and winning the usual Democrat states. Obama is running a much wider race, and threatens McCain far more closely in far more states than Hillary.

    I know it’s a bit more complex than the big hand is on 12 and the little hand is on 3 Growler, but if you can’t actually get your mind around these facts, what in god’s name are you doing on a psephological website pontificating with neocon talking points?

    Making silly attempts at jokes by invoking George Orwell is not answering the argument, but it’s all you ever seem to do.

  22. At a sermon at Friendship-West Baptist Church, Dallas, Texas:

    [Wright listed accomplishments that a black man can achieve if he stands up for himself, all of which Obama achieved, such as being the first African-American to edit the Harvard Law Review and winning the Iowa Democratic caucus. “You can be … the first black man to have a black woman sleeping at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue legally,” Wright said. “You can change the system.”]

    http://www.star-telegram.com/804/story/607379.html

    But it is not WHAT he said. it is the WAY or HOW he said it. He was basically mocking the non-black Americans. He was basically saying that “we now have a black guy who can be in the Whitehouse, so up yours, nah nah nah nah nah”. It has to be seen to believe, his body language, swagger, gesture, facial expression and the way he stirred up the black audience.

    This guy will sink Obama candidacy and presidency.

  23. Ignorant loathing lefties….Obamabots….dreamin’ dolts….kumayah singers, unpatriotic peaceniks who put our families at risk, Bush/Howard lovers, chattering cretins…

    How can we bear the odium?

  25. Finns @1372 – that’s a hilarious line!

    And you should probably leave the ‘poor marginalised whites’ lines to Thatcherites and the likes of Hanson. I’m pretty sure that that helpless group can cope with what you see as ‘basically mocking’. Incidently this basically mocking is probably similar to a lot of what Wright delivered at the NAACP dinner, which the major networks seem to have reported pretty positively.

  26. #1374 – the hype? what hype. thinking of writing a song called “Takin’ ’bout Obama blues”. With a spiritual advisor like that who needs enemy.

  27. 1375
    Pancho

    I note that Chris Wallace on Fox can ask Obama about the ‘lunch bucket crowd’ and no one raises and eyebrow or asks how can he generalise like that, or make such an elitist remark.

    But if a black man says it! Look out brother!

    It’s all two-faced rubbish, but about what we’ve come to expect as the standard of ‘debate’.

  28. That’s not what he said; nor is it what he meant Finns. Thanks to the broader exposure of his NAACP speech, his interview by Moyers and sermons like this, Americans are beginning to see the man beyond the soundbyte. We’re seriosly interpreting his ‘swagger’ now? Ever been to a black church Finns? I have. The culture, language, posture, cadence, delivery is all different to the quiet little Aussie Catholic/Anglican/Baptist/Presyterian/whatever church we all have some familiarity with.

    But I’m a little confused – if it wasn’t filmed, then how were you able to parse his body language?

  30. Compare with our Deal Leader, Obama is an L-plate. What a master politician our DL is. I cannot remember a substantial new tax rise that would generate billions to the Govt that has been greeed with joy, support, relief and back slapping. This is the tax on the mixed alcoholic drinks.

  31. 1372
    The Finnigans

    Fairly good article actually Finns, and it concludes:

    Haynes praised the hourlong interview Bill Moyers conducted with Wright that was broadcast on PBS on Friday, describing it as the first balanced portrait of the man since the scandal broke last month.

    “It’s something that needs to be part of every classroom in the nation,” Haynes said. He said Wright “basically presented not only himself but the prophetic tradition of the black church in this nation. He represented the best of America.”

    …I must say I enjoyed reading that interview too.

    And as for Wright’s joke about a black woman in the Whitehouse, well maybe we could ask Hillary how many she knows that slept there?

  32. Finns

    Different is not deficient.

    Just because people are different does not make them deficient.

    The blacks are not gonna take over if Obama wins the Presidency.

    But hopefully it can bring people together with better understanding .

  34. Pancho
    #1383
    “Can you really be sure Harry?”

    You sure cann’t. You use the Obama line. when you here words from Hillary ,
    just ‘mange’ them and change them to suit your own ends

  36. Well the flock

    Do you support the decision by POTUS Truman to nuke Japan in 1945 ?

    lets see your Obama convictions with your answer

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