Election Wire....

CLINTON WINS NV....

Romney Wins, Too

78% reporting: HRC: 51%, Obama: 45%, Edwards: 4%

** Campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle tells us: "This was a great win. There is a lot of work left to do. We're looking forward to working for every vote in the coming primaries and caucuses."
** Clinton wins Hispanics...64% ... good sign for Feb. 5 states...
** Clinton won six of nine at-large precincts...Jon Ralston: At Wynn precinct, HRC and Obama tie on first ballot...wins Clark county by 12%...Turnout exceeds 100,000
** HRC's Macker on MSNBC: "This is a huge win for us. Coming in with probably a five point disadvantage..."
** Obama adviser Susan Rice: "We're still the insurgent campaign..."
** Exit polls for SC starting to leak online, but I won't post them here...

Exit poll data, courtesy of CBS News and CBS News.com. (For more updates, click here.)
** Economy is top issue (48%)...followed by health care and war on Iraq..
** 28% were union members -- divided vote b/w Clinton and Obama
** Clinton wins women (52 to 30) AND ties men...
** More valued change than experience, but of those who valued experience, NINE of TEN backed HRC, while FIVE in TEN change-preferences backed Obama

Comments

wait, she "ties men," wins women by 22 points and only wins the whole thing by five? That would have to mean that hardly any women participated, wouldn't it?

Posted by kansas | January 19, 2008 4:08 PM

Nevada is a launching pad for losers: Pat Robertson, Jerry Brown, Bob Dole, et al. So HRC wins in a state with more mob ties than Southern Florida. Yawn. It's about South Carolina.
And the Romney win? California has seen this movie, and matinee idol, before. Remember Al Checchi? Another handsome plutocrat who made his money by putting hard-working Americans out of work.
Californians were smart enough to not let Checchi buy the state. We'll see how smart the GOP is. Mitt Romney: Boone Pickens with a better hairline.
So the GOP Establishment and the Democrat Establishment had a good day in Vegas. How inspiring.
On to South Carolina.

Posted by fougasseu | January 19, 2008 4:13 PM

Can we have a reality check on the "Every win for the Clintons is a huge come from behind win" narrative? The rolling average of polls at Pollster.com had Hillary Clinton with a 7% lead. Just because some Clinton toady puts out a press release the day before the election saying they are 5 points behind doesn't make it so.

Posted by joejoejoe | January 19, 2008 4:19 PM

Check out this interesting stat from the exits:

Importance of Debate
68% Important: HRC 52, Obama 37
24% Not Important: Obama 41, HRC 38.

Obama's candidacy is faith based. If you like him, you like him and there's nothing anyone or anything can do to change your mind. His ads are similar, they show him speaking and crowds reacting religiously. I'm not an Obama believer (at this point), and I think the ads suck. I wonder if he's got too many people in his camp who have "drunk the koolaid" and don't know how to persuade those who haven't. Reminds me of Jimmy Carter's ads where they would just show Carter's speeches.

As media becomes more important in the coming contests, and Hillary has (I believe) the better media, how does Obama compete? The answer is ditch Axelrod. His ads suck and he has very little to do with getting Obama where he is now (it's literally all about Obama, any manager could have gotten to this point running a candidate with that much political talent).

Iowa was one thing, but Iowa is screwed up and very little like any of the later contests, even the caucuses. If Obama had 6 months to work Nevada, would he have won? Probably. But the later primaries (and the general election) are media contests, and if you're an Obama supporter you have to acknowledge that his media is not persuading voters. Even his early SC lead post Iowa bump has eroded now that Hillary has pumped up her TV buys there.

Posted by Chris | January 19, 2008 4:21 PM

Agreed. The media cannot allow the clintons to spin this as some come from behind surpise. The led in the LVRJ by 9% going in. SHe had the establishement support and has led int hat state all year by 20 points. Obama made it a close race. This is doing to be a delegate battle and a 5 pt win in envada does not change that fact.

Posted by RKA | January 19, 2008 4:23 PM

Chris, I wouldn't read much into those "importance of the debate" numbers other than to realize that young people generally don't say they care about debates like older voters (who are home to watch them) do...it doesn't mean the debates change any minds.

Posted by More Axe | January 19, 2008 4:25 PM

Agreed with AXE on debate poll numbers. One poll does not a trend make. I haven't seen evidence for big swings from debates, especially this cycles. There are so damn many...

Agreed with everyone that the Hillary come from behind line is complete bullshit.

Obama does need better media strategy. He couldn't pull the coverage his way after Iowa, it was 24/7 Hillary all weekend and she took advantage. Does very well where he can get people to events, build a grassroots effort and with long exposure (Iowa), but that won't pull him through Super Tuesday(s). He needs a new tack of persuasion to push him over the edge... and sadly will have to do it largely on TV. While I disagree that any manager could have gotten Obama to this point, it's worth asking if Axelrod and team are ready for a national media campaign.

Has he made up much ground anywhere since the Iowa victory proved him a viable candidate? At this point Hillary seems to have stopped the bleeding.

Posted by Jimmy | January 19, 2008 4:51 PM

Actually, the one thing that did surprise me was how badly Edwards did...I figured he would get at least 10-15%.

Posted by RKA | January 19, 2008 4:52 PM

And what is up with that exit poll gender disparity? Very confusing.

Posted by Jimmy | January 19, 2008 4:53 PM

Chris,

As I read your characterization of Obama's followers as "faith based", it bothered me at first, probably because I'm one of those very 'believers'. What I realized is that although you're probably right in terms of your strategic analysis of those who care about the debate, and the inefficacy of his ad campaign - in that it is only preaching to the choir, and feeding the strongest criticism of him, that he is lacking substance - I think your analysis assumes a near-Clintonian perspective.

Granted, there was and still remains a lot of hype about Obama, stemming from his political rhetoric and oratorical skills. BUT comparing his followers to kool-aid-drinkin' religious followers only misses a point that he would readily concede: that his candidacy is very much about character and not exclusively about policy. To a large degree, I think this is why his followers said that the debate mattered less to them - because they are voting more about character and for a candidate that they can trust.

On the same note, I think that if Obama began to display Clintonian political ploys, then you would see some of his herd running. So I agree with you - policy matters less for the Obama supporters - but I'm not as cynical about it as you are.

I also think you're right about what Obama's game plan should become: having secured those who are convinced by his character & rhetoric, he needs to appeal to those voters who decide based more on the issues at hand.

Just one last point. Lest readers see character-based voters as an absurd notion, the whole question of whether to vote on issues vs. character needs to be seen within the context of the relative similarity between Hillary & Obama's actual policy positions and plans (This, in response to the Colbert Report that I've been imagining as I've been writing, mocking those voters who actually care about the issues, well how silly......). This is essentially the argument put forth by Sullivan in last month's Atlantic.

Posted by aeli | January 19, 2008 4:53 PM

Obama's pickle with ads: His poetry is very persuasive, and though we as political nerds have heard it a million times, most normal people have not. So logically, they want more people to hear those powerful speeches.

But, that language may have a "ceiling." Clinton holds ground with her prose, meaty issue-stuff and her "experience" campaign. Obama does not lack for substance, but can appear that way on TV. He has to find a way marry prose to poetry in bits of 30 second or less.

Perceptions are all that matters in a national media campaign.

Posted by Jimmy | January 19, 2008 5:05 PM

Two words: Old people. Obama has to figure out a way to pull most of them in, and I don't think he's going to be able to do it. Personally, I like Obama a lot more than Clinton, but I'm under 45 and don't like prune juice yet.

Posted by Helter | January 19, 2008 5:12 PM

Helter - Since your candidate is OVER 45, I guess he falls into the "prune juice" category?

But the hard facts are, the average voter in the last election was close to 55 years of age. This cycle it is likely going to be above that bar. Plus the majority of voters across the board are female.

Prune juice or not, your candidate has to convince an electorate where the "average" voter is a 55 year old Caucasian female. If you're not happy with that scenario, then you and your candidate are quite welcome to go campaign in ANOTHER COUNTRY.

Posted by robert ethan | January 19, 2008 5:26 PM

Obama's candidacy is faith based.

Yeah, he's fooled all the college educated idiots out there. I'm not quite ready for prune juice just yet, but I have voted for Democrats going back to George McGovern. I think Hillary will be a disaster.

Hillary's campaign is very inspiring: "I have experience". Maybe she can borrow that great winning line from Michael Dukakis, "This election isn't about ideology, it's about competence". That should inspire the voters and sell about as well with voters in 2008 as it did in 1988.

Posted by Pug | January 19, 2008 5:35 PM

First blame Hillary and Bill then blame the surrogates now blame Axelrod and the ads and the media.
Point inward: the campaign isn't working. Its really not looking like a movement. Onbama so far has won the neighboring state where he camped out with months of time and 10 million dollars.
He might be great but it isn't working yet.
Its not Hillary's fault or edwards fault: they were both guarenteed to be opponents when he entered race. The war issue isn't driving it now.
He has the same voting record as his opponant. Many of us rally do value the time she spent with Bill in the white house and the governor's mansions. Obama doesn't have any particular experience on economic issues but the clinton years were strong there.
AND he blew the easiest job interview question in the world and said he's a slob and needs to be cleaned up after. A rough time for him and his rookie mistakes.

Posted by Michael C. | January 19, 2008 6:21 PM

dearest robert ethan,

calm it with the CAP-filled condescending crap - you may not be the shmuck you do such an effective job of coming off as.

Posted by aeli | January 19, 2008 6:29 PM

Stop with the Clinton-talks-issues crap. She just says she's a woman, so vote for me. And Hispanics don't like blacks. That's all.

Posted by The truth | January 19, 2008 6:47 PM

Pug: When I say Obama's candidate is faith based, I mean that his followers are *like* religious devotees, only their religion is Obama-worship.

It seems to be implied that college educated voters (and make no mistake, this is Obama's base) are somehow too smart to get involved with this type of movement. I point you in the direction of listening to Radiohead, shopping at Costco, watching the Wire...all things that these types of people "do religiously."

One thing I think Obama supporters do that hurts their candidate's cause is implying (as above) that better educated voters are picking Obama and that somehow bestows some sort of legitimacy on him, particularly in comparison to the less well-education supporters of Clinton.

Under-educated people are usually pretty self-aware of their status and are constantly on the lookout for this kind of snobbish looking down the nose at them. The more Obama's supporters imply this kind of logic, the more they'll solidify Hillary's hold on those who didn't graduate (or have the ability) to attend college.

And before someone argues that better educated voters somehow have some sort of monopoly on picking good candidates, may I remind you that Bill Clinton was propelled largely by lower-class/less educated voters and he's the only successful Democratic nominee who both won and was re-elected to the Presidency since FDR.

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