Democrats: South Carolina election live blogging
7:16 pm - January 26th 2008
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Let the speculation, nail biting, under-the-breath swearing, headline sharing and mud-slinging begin! The voting has started.
12am update: CNN has already called it an Obama win.
As I said earlier, I’m hoping Barack Obama wins, John Edwards comes second and Hillary Clinton third. There are reports of a ‘late surge‘ for Edwards so its possible.
Please share your headlines, desired results and speculation below. I’ll be up till around 4am or something blogging, though I’ll be out for a little while as I’ll be playing poker tonight *sheepish grin*
Interesting news articles
The State: Obama-Clinton dividing female voters, even families
Politico: S.C. Dems vote in potential game-changer
CNN: Steady to strong turnout as South Carolina votes
Obama wins
I’ve stopped the live-blogging plugin for tonight. Thanks for all those who messaged in and sorry I wasn’t around more.
This article on Politico spells bad news for Clinton.
Obama’s victory, with roughly double the votes of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, was driven by a stunning 81% of the African-American vote, according to exit polls. But Obama also won 25% of South Carolina’s white vote, leaving his campaign in a position to make the case that he can build a new Democratic coalition.
The results meanwhile offered a sharp rebuke to former President Bill Clinton, who campaigned hard for his wife across South Carolina, attacking her rival’s record with a vigor new to the campaign.
…
But Obama – who had been punished by the press after losing amid high expectations in Nevada and New Hampshire – triumphed over low expectations set by recent polls, which suggested he could get as little as 10% of the white vote – putting him in Jackson’s range.Instead, he left with his campaign’s central argument – that he can attract a broad new range of supporters – intact.
More interesting stats
- Barack Obama earned more votes tonight than were cast for all candidates combined in the 2004 Democratic primary. [via]
- About half the voters were black, according to polling place interviews, and four out of five of them supported Obama. Black women turned out in particularly large numbers. Obama, the first-term Illinois senator, got about a quarter of the white vote while Clinton and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina split the rest. [via]
- Obama also gained an endorsement from Caroline Kennedy, who likened the Illinois senator to her late father, President John F. Kennedy in the New York Times
- Overall, Obama defeated Clinton among both men and women.
- The exit polls showed the economy was the most important issue in the race. About one quarter picked health care. And only one in five said it was the war in Iraq, underscoring the extent to which the once-dominant issue has faded in the face of financial concerns.
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Sunny Hundal is editor of LC. Also: on Twitter, at Pickled Politics and Guardian CIF.
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Reader comments
Back in from the night out with friends, very interesting to see CNN projecting an Obama win already, can’t wait to see how it turns out!
Well as the results have piled in Obama’s percentage has levelled out at around 54% vs Clinton’s 27-29 and Edwards’ 17-19.
Will be interesting to take a look at the exit results considering Obama here could be claiming a double scalp here, not only taking a huge victory but also doing so with such a high percentage of female voters. The spin machine could potentially make this into a very big step for Obama on the road to the white house.
Right, I’m back! Most of the stuff will go up on the live-blogging software though…
Strong victory in the end. Shame Edwards couldn’t take a few more votes but it’s not a terrible showing for him in a state where the chips would always be against him. He actually took more of the vote from white people than Clinton did.
Game on.
Indeed. Excellent result.
I can’t make up my mind on whether Edwards staying in the race is good for Obama or not, but he should have done better in SC than elsewhere. After all, he is a southener and from North Carolina. His rather poor showing means he is def out of the game, but sticking around for some reason. Possibly for a VP ticket.
I think he probably sucked votes away from Clinton in SC, and that this would probably be the pattern in the South. However in most other places I think he’s likely to be getting votes from the left, which might well either split evenly or break for Obama.
Sunny,
What is quite worrying is that a lot of the media are now saying that Barak Obama is the ‘black’ candidate, given his figures in South Carolina. Correct me if I am wrong, but did he did not win in a substantially white state too? Iowa? Where 98% or so are apparently white?
Which is spin doctors playing with the message, I think.
This guy runs across racial divisions. I am not at all convinced by the media agenda.
Bill Clinton subtly tried to hint that South Carolina would always have voted for Obama because of race, as they did with Jackson. Trouble is Obama won much more of the white vote.
As for Edwards and his influence on Obama in the North. In these states Edwards doesn’t seem to have much sway, and still eats in to Clinton’s side of things. It’s amazing really how much Obama’s support amongst similar demographics is completely unwavering. Edwards being in the running is definitely more of a benefit to Obama than it is to Clinton, especially while Obama’s message is one that independents seem more happy to get behind.
There’s an increasing number of bloggers talking about this race not being decided until the conference, one linked from CNN posed the question as to whether or not the superdelegates would “throw” the election against what the public ultimately vote because they have a preferred candidate, and just how much damage that would do to the democrats when trying to get in to power.
Unfortunately I seem to have lost the link for now 🙁
Who else thinks Bill has wasted a lot of his political capital in this fight?
A Clinton running so hard against an African American candidate: who’d a funk it?
Lee @ 11:
Was this the sort of thing that you saw?
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/what-are-super-delegates/1856896286
13. Doug:
I found the link in the end, http://www.americablog.com/2008/01/members-of-congress-and-governors-could.html
Very interesting… But saying that, potentially the super-delegates can affect the election but if a candidate gets enough normal delegates then the supeer-delegates have less influence. The supers have more influence if the race is undecided, by the looks of it.
Given that three of the biggest Democrats: John Kerry, Ted Kennedy and Tom Daschle have sided with Obama, he shouldn’t have a problem getting more supers now.
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