Here is your thread for Texas exit polls and election results for the Texas primary. We will live-blog throughout the day on March 4th, 2008, for both the Republican and Democrat primary so use this thread to start the dialog. Winners will be posted as soon as we can make the call.
Conventional wisdom is that Barack Obama erased Hillary’s lead and should win. However, Right Pundits detects a resurgence by Hillary Clinton in the state of Texas according to the very latest pre-election polls. We think that the now famous national security advertisement by Hillary Clinton was more effective than people will give credit.
The two-step primary plus caucus system in Texas is confusing everyone. Here is a primer to help you sort it out. When you understand it, please come back and explain it to us.
Experts expect the vote to break along race, gender, and ethnic lines. Despite all of the talk about issues, group identity will play a major role as always. This fact is not a good omen for Obama because the rhetoric does not match the reality.
Finally, what is all of this talk about Republicans voting for Hillary Clinton in Texas? How do Democrats feel about this effort which has been promoted by Rush Limbaugh?
Here are the polls on election eve:
Texas Polls
WFAA Belo (Feb.28 – Mar.1):
- Obama 46%
- Clinton 46%
- McCain 56%
- Huckabee 31%
- Paul 6%
Survey USA (Mar. 1-2):
- Obama 48%
- Clinton 49%
- McCain 53%
- Huckabee 36%
- Paul 5%
PPP (Mar. 1-2):
- Obama 44%
- Clinton 50%
- McCain 50%
- Huckabee 38%
- Paul 6%
Reuters – CSPAN – Zogby (Feb.29 – Mar.2):
- Obama 44%
- Clinton 47%
- McCain 50%
- Huckabee 38%
- Paul 6%
March 4th 2008 Live-blogging Updates:
Texas exit poll data:
(March 4th, 2008.)
12.25 EST: See report below, McCain supporters crossing over to “defeat Hillary today”. Will other Republicans who want to run against Hillary cancel the Houston crossovers out? One thing is certain, there are Republicans crossing over and meddling in the Dem. Primary, whether they’ll caucus is yet to be seen. Stay tuned.
12.15 EST Update: I just got an odd report from someone in the Texas Hillary camp. She’s supposedly running better than expected around Dallas, which is surprising as that’s a heavily black area. When I asked what “better than expected” meant, she said 5-7 points higher. Can anyone decipher this? Does this mean that Hillary is only losing the Black vote 85-15 instead of 90-10??? Does that even matter? I’ll wait for more data as this gal has been off once before, but she sounded kind of excited. She also said Hillary is “cleaning up” in West Texas, which begged the question, Is there anything to “clean up” in West Texas?
12.25 EST Update: Contrary to reports that Republicans are supporting Hillary, I just got another solid report from a Republican organizer (someone in the know) that Republicans in the suburbs south of Houston are making a concerted effort to defeat Hillary now. “We figure we might as well just beat her now so there is no chance she wins in November”. According to Blake, They have organized a somewhat successful Republican get out the vote effort with the battle cry “defeat Hillary today”. He also said that a majority of these voters are McCain supporters. Which makes one wonder what effect, if any, will the crossover vote have on McCain’s margin of victory in Texas. I doubt many of these Republicans will also caucus, they hate Hillary, but not enough to miss dinner to defeat her.
12.45 EST Update: Rush Limbaugh, who has recently been urging Republicans to vote for Hillary so she can “bloody up” Obama some more, is out sick and not on the air today. A talker our of Dallas is sitting in for him.
2 EST Update: FIRST WAVE. These numbers aren’t statewide but a good cross-section. You aren’t going to get our head to head numbers yet as we want to be conservative and make sure they are right, but as Rightpundits told you earlier, the crossover (Republicans meddling in the Dems affairs) is huge. Despite heavy heavy turnout, the crossover vote is still making up somewhere between 5%-8% of the Democratic vote. The crossover vote is coming from the older republican crowd. Of course, one can assume Republicans are really liking the “Rockstar” candidate, but you’d be kidding yourself, these are McCain voters in the general. Here’s another tidbit, about 10% of the Dem primary voters have NEVER voted before and a little more than half have never voted in a primary. Be weary of this first wave of polling if it is reported by other sites, in my opinion, something is messed up with the African-American turnout. Either they all slept in or they didn’t show up. I can’t believe either of those and suspect they are somehow undereported. In other words, Obama’s base (black voters) is definitely going to turn out and the numbers aren’t right.
2.41pm – It really does appear that Hillary is exceeding expectations in the early data. As we always caution, take first waves as they are meant to be, which is a pile of data that has not been properly normalized for known demographics. More in a minute.
3pm – New reports of Obama cheating the caucus system on election day. This story will rage tonight.
3.02 – More on the caucus… remember that ANYONE who voted in the Democrat primary is eligible for the Democrat caucus. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that means thousands of Republicans attempting to manipulate the election will be eligible if they want to take the time. Something tells me that this time, the Democrats will not want to make sure every vote is counted. The media coverage of this mess is going to give the Texas election system a black eye.
3.24 EST – The Obama campaign is preparing it’s surrogates to claim the delegate count on a national scale, and why Clinton, even after doing well in Texas and Ohio, still can’t catch Obama in the delegate count, and that Obama is still the delegate leader and has won the vast majority of the last dozen states. They are also going to downplay Ohio and try to build up delegate count in Texas as opposed to popular vote. I don’t know if this is just worst case scenario planning on Obama’s behalf or a tip of the hand at what their internals are showing.
3.50 EST – Turnout is much higher than any previous primary, but turnout is LOWER than all the pundits were predicting. Most pundits and those in the know thought turnout would exceed 3 million, some even suggesting it would be closer to 3.5 million. Absent a huge surge this evening, the predictions seem to be off. Young African American turnout is 1/3 lower than expected, maybe they’ll show up in the final wave??
4.15 EST – Rumors a swirling that some Obama supporters are not voting in the primary and instead are going to turnout in force at the caucus tonight at 7:15 since Obama is supposed to “do well” in the caucus. The only problem with that line of thinking is that those who didn’t vote in the Dem. primary can’t caucus. Somebody better get that word out to the Obama ground game!
4.30 EST – Mood in Obama camp shifting to subdued. They are lowering expectations this afternoon and talking about the next contests like Hillary did in past days. Obama: “We closed the gap, but you know whether it’s going to be enough to actually win is going to depend on turnout. We know there’s not going to be a huge shift in delegates one way or another — just given the math. Which means that either way we will go to Mississippi or Wyoming next week.”
5.28pm – Independents are 20% of vote in Democratic primary in Ohio. On the GOP side, only 14%.
5.43 EST – Plan on hearing a lot about the overall delegate count from the Obama folks tonight.
6.15 EST – IN TEXAS Among Black Voters Obama 83 Clinton 16, Among Hispanic Voters Clinton 64 Obama 32.
6.50 EST OBAMA +2 in Texas. Well within margin of error.
7 EST Regardless of outcome, Obama folks have been told to talk tonight and tomorrow about the overall delegate count being in favor of Barack.
8:42 EST (Update from Tina)- With 1% +/- OBAMA 467,143 56%
CLINTON 356,470 – 43%9.30 EST I expect Hillary to be a narrow winner in Texas despite her early lead with 2% counted. This is not a formal call, but expect the actual vote numbers to tighten considerably later tonight. (Note that this thread is maintained by multiple analysts who may see the data differently.)
11.30pm – Right Pundits calls Hillary Clinton the winner of the Texas primary as hinted about 2 hours ago. The results are continuing to align with the exit polls. It will be a narrow win but a win nevertheless and don’t forget where you heard it first. Join us in a few minutes for an open thread on the Texas caucus. (call by McCain at 11.30pm)
FYI CNN has exit poll data posted publicly here.
Republican Texas Primary Results (Texas):
Democrat Texas Primary Results (Texas):
March 4th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Brian,
Katy is West of Houston. I-10 runs pretty much straight through the center of Houston. It runs directly North of downtown. If you were to follow that out of Houston you would hit Katy before ever hitting another big city again until San Antonio.
What you said might very well be happening in Katy, but that wouldn’t be South. However if your source said South and he is in Katy I would doubt the source.
March 4th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
Listen, you guys are missing the point. What happens with the Texas Caucuses is less important than the popular vote. There are plenty of delegates left for Hillary, what she needs is to reverse Barack’s momentum. A win in Texas and Ohio does this nicely and allows her to keep her super delagates. This could be the beginning of the end for Obama!
March 4th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Remember Katrina? Are you serious?
Those people aren’t voting. They didn’t even vote for Nagin when they had the chance. Plus, is your polling data asking ‘were you a Katrina victim?’ I seriously doubt many of those people are voting.
Sorry, but that would go against everything that they do.
March 4th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
“Obama cheating” = unsourced rumor and it worst, seems to be the work of a few rogue volunteers. Try to exercise a little journalistic integrity in your post.
March 4th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Many Texas Republicans figured out all by themselves to vote for Hillary so as to keep the Dems fighting. My wife and I talked about it over a week ago, and we voted for her today – we live in the Dallas suburbs. I guess Rush stole our idea!
March 4th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
After tonight you will have 126 delegates that have been awarded.
126 delegates are “primary-chosen” delegates, allocated based on the results of votes cast on March 4. The 126 delegates that are allocated by the “regular” primary system will be the only ones that Senator Clinton and Senator Obama can add to their tally after March 4. These 126 delegates are divided based on the voting strength of each candidate in the 31 State Senate Districts across Texas.
67 delegates are “caucus-chosen” delegates, allocated at the state convention.
35 “unpledged” or “super” delegates
Here is how the caucus system works:
42 at-Large delegates allocated by the “caucus” system. The allocation of these 42 delegates (by candidate preference) is based on the presidential preference expressed state convention delegates (who are chosen at their precinct and county conventions) when they sign in at the state convention June 6.
Let’s do an example: 100 people attend a precinct convention (which is held 15 minutes after the polls close). 80 of those attending the precinct convention support Obama, and 20 support Clinton. Let’s assume your precinct gets to select 5 delegates to the County Convention. 4 of those Delegates would be “pledged” to Obama, and 1 would be “pledged” to Clinton. Those 5 people go to the County Convention.
At the County Convention, the same process is repeated. Let’s say there are 100 people at the County Convention — these are the 100 delegates that were chosen at all of the precinct conventions around the County. At the County Convention, let’s say 75 are “Obama precinct convention” delegates and 25 are “Clinton precinct convention” delegates. Based on the county strength — the percentage of statewide Democratic votes that came from your county — let’s say your County gets to send 4 delegates to the State Convention. 3 of those delegates would be “pledged” to Obama, and 1 would be “pledged” to Clinton.
The identical process is followed at the State convention. Let’s say 100 delegates go to the State Convention — these are the 100 delegates that were chosen to represent their candidate at the County Convention. Of these 100 delegates at the State Convention, 66 (2/3) vote for Obama and 34 (1/3) vote for Clinton. The 42 at-large delegates are split along this percentage division — so Obama would have an additional 28 delegates (2/3 of 42) attend the DNC Convention, while Clinton would have 14 delegates (1/3 of 42) attend the DNC Convention.
I grossly under-represented the numbers at every convention level for illustrative purposes; if you can follow this logic (and I’ve tried as best I could to help you), you’ll understand the main point: this process awards whichever campaign has the best grassroots effort to get their voters to stay after the polls close and attend the precinct convention. This is truly a process where the numbers build up — and yes, it’s crazy. But we’re Texas — what would we be if we weren’t at least a little crazy.
Also, 25 pledged “super delegates” allocated by the caucus system. The 25 pledged “party delegates” are party leaders, Democratic Mayors and Legislators. They are all allocated along the same lines as the delegates attending the State convention. Using the 2/3 to 1/3 split I described above, 17 of the 25 delegates (2/3) would be for Obama, and 8 delegates (1/3) would be for Clinton. As a note, only a candidate receiving a 15 percent threshold may receive votes.
So at the end this is how it breaks down:
126 “primary-chosen” delegates, allocated based on the results of votes cast on March 4.
42 at-large, “caucus-chosen” delegates that come up through the primary and county convention.
25 pledged “party delegates” allocated by the presidential preference of delegates attending the State convention.
35 unpledged “super delegates”
March 4th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Actually, I just thought Katy was southwest of Houston from previous conversations with him. It’s my bad, not the source. Thanks for the correction CB.
March 4th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
“3.02 – More on the caucus… remember that ANYONE who voted in the Democrat primary is eligible for the Democrat caucus. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that means thousands of Republicans attempting to manipulate the election will be eligible if they want to take the time…”
I think that most of the Republicans that voted for Hillary will not go the extra step and caucus for her too.
March 4th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Hillary is a loser and Texans who follow Limbaugh’s advice are also losers. Obama will never win the Whitehouse so let him win the Demo primary early and then all the negatives will arrive on time. Enough of that Clinton family.
Obama should have run an ad that says how can a person make a accurate judgment call at 3:00am when they don’t even know where their spouse is?
March 4th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Nonsense about the Katrina “refugees” not voting for Nagin and nonsense about them not voting in Texas.
March 4th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Brian I figured that was the case. Sugar Land is actually southwest, and not all that far from Katy. They all pretty much represent the same kind of voter. If you were to look at a map of Houston you would see 2 loops. One being 610, and the other being Beltway 8. Everything outside of the Beltway is going to be a lot more conservative. There are about 5.5 million in the Greater Houston area, and only 2.14 make up the metropolitian area.
March 4th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
C-Lo,
You are right about a lot of them not going to caucus for her, but there will be plenty that do. A couple of my buddies are going to one together, and I assure you will make plenty of noise.
The organization of this was much better than many think, and was kept pretty much underground. It had been brewing long before Rush.
March 4th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
“Hillary is a loser and Texans who follow Limbaugh’s advice are also losers.”
Oh…the Nah Na, Nah Na, Boo, Boo arguement!
The longer Hillary and Obama go at it, the better it is for McCain…why can’t you see that!
March 4th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
“You are right about a lot of them not going to caucus for her, but there will be plenty that do. A couple of my buddies are going to one together, and I assure you will make plenty of noise.
The organization of this was much better than many think, and was kept pretty much underground. It had been brewing long before Rush.”
I wish I lived in Texas and could vote for her…way to go Cracked…but why is everyone slapping me back for giving Rush credit. There might have been alot going on underground like you said, but it was Rush’s call to arms!
March 4th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
anon, you can call it nonsense all you want, but I live amongst it. There are plenty of them that have contributed to this area, but for every one of those there are about 3 whose contribution has been murder, stealing, robbing, etc.
They did not vote for Nagin as was covered extensively here in Houston. Nagin put campaing signs up everywhere, and even took out ad space on billboards. Very little voted, and very little have registered here as well. At least for that election most of them could vote they just didn’t. This time around they aren’t registered and you can’t find them.
I actually talked to an Obama supporter about this exact thing on Sunday when they came by the house. For some reason they came to my neighborhood which was surprising, but showed good organization. I don’t think that it will be enough. It has seemed that for every Obama voter in the suburbs you have about 2 1/2 Hillary supporters.
One thing you have not mentioned as well is that in Texas unlike any other state his voters were the most likely to shift. Texas has never really warmed up to Obama besides the AA vote, and some excitement on the University of Texas campus in Austin. That would be expected if you live here. He won’t do nearly as well in College Station home of Texas A&M, or in Lubbock home to Texas Tech.
March 4th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
C-Lo…can’t imagine you’d feel the same way if Dems were coming across to mess with a Repub primary. Of course you can vote for whomever you want, but it’s simply bad form in a representative democracy to vote in such a manner.
March 4th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
CB,
I’d like to hear your thoughts on why the early exits are showing young black voters didn’t show up in near the numbers that were expected.
Will they show up? Do they show up later? Especially in your “stomping grounds” Harris county, the black vote is well below what was predicted. (22% actual vs. 30%-35% predicted). What is going on in Harris County with the black vote and to a lesser extend Dallas?
March 4th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
C-Lo if you aren’t from Texas sometimes it can be hard to understand. We are an Independent bunch in the sense that we don’t like anyone telling us how we should do things.
Whether it be praying at football games (Santa Fe ISD vs. Doe), right to carry, how to vote, etc.
This was in the works long before Rush started talking about it happening. Rush sometimes does things so that he can claim victory, but the truth in this matter is that it was already happening. Most of y’all who wouldn’t know what is going on here would think that it was Rush, but those of us who live here would know that it happened long before him suggesting.
Just for instance this morning was the first time I had heard about Rush doing this. They were tlaking about it on Morning Joe, and I seriously considered not doing it because they acted like we were all doing it because of Rush. Nothing could be farther from the truth. We are doing it because Texans have always thought outside the box, and for many other reasons.
March 4th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
CB,
I have a theory I want to run by you, the republican vote in Harris county is mostly white (approx 4-1 white), the Dem vote is mostly non-white (approx 3-1 non-white), is it possible that the republican turnout is so high that it is suppressing the non-white vote as a percentage of the actual vote, ie the blacks are showing up, but there’s a lot of white republicans voting also, making the black voters drop from the expected 30+% down to 20+%?
March 4th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Go Hillary,
We love you in NYC. We will never forget what you have done for us during 911.
God bless.
March 4th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Ben,
How high and mighty of you to think that way. Interesting that I didn’t see many up in arms over the Dems voting for McCain when they were given the chance. I know now that it might change your race in the same way it is “bad form.” Give me a freaking break.
Besides many Republicans who are crossing over really do prefer Clinton over Obama, and she should take it that way. Obama scares the hell out of more than a few in this country.
You can’t be everything to everyone, and just because he promises to be Santa Claus doesn’t mean he is going to deliver those presents. Did you ever wait up for Santa as a child? If you did like 99.9% of other kids you would already know that you never saw him come down the chimney, and you finally learned he never came but that it was your parents. It is pretty much going to be the same in this case. The only difference is your parents won’t have enough money to deliver these Christams presents.
March 4th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Is there any talk in Texas about Obama and Nafta?
Every time you saw him on TV even in Texas he was talking about Youngstown OH. Did bashing Nafta and talking about OHIO play well in TX?
March 4th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
You are right, Texas was slow to warm up to him because they didn’t know him. Their are still doubts about him however he has been able to build up a base of support among the young, AA’s and young to middle age latinos just enough to win. Also, he was never expected to do well in College Station because it is far more conservative. Watch East Texas tonight.
As for AA vote turnout, they turned out huge for him in early voting and most will be voting this evening. Count on it.
March 4th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
You are right, Texas was slow to warm up to him because they didn’t know him. There are still doubts about him however he has been able to build up a base of support among the young, AA’s and young to middle age latinos(not 1st and 2nd generation like in California) just enough to win. Also, he was never expected to do well in College Station because it is far more conservative. Watch East Texas tonight.
As for AA vote turnout, they turned out huge for him in early voting and most will be voting this evening. You are also seriously underestimating AA support and voting power in Dem primaries especially in one with a very viable AA candidate. I invite you to look at how Obama has fared with AA’s throughout this primary season, beating even their OWN expectations.
March 4th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Over the past week, we heard so many rumors about Obama: “He is a Muslim, he is gay, he is lying about NAFTA, he is cheating in elections, he is in Rezko’s pocket”.
Well, which is it, gay or Muslim?
It seems that these rumors are actually affecting the polls, because the turnaround in the polls both in TX and OH in the past two days is very surprising, and there is no explanation for it that I can see, except that these rumors have intensified just at a very precise time to do the most damage.
It does seem like there is a smear campaign going on, and it is directly benefitting Hillary.
Meanwhile, we know that Hillary was for NAFTA, and now she is against it. We know, thanks to the NYtimes which endorsed Hillary, that on election night in NY many black neighborhoods initially reported zero votes for Obama.
We know that Hillary voted for authorizing the war.
We also know about Bill: Watergate, Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky, lying under oath, and the Kazakhstan uranium deal (also from NYtimes).
Even when you compare rumors, Clintons’ are so much worse.
I suspect that Hillary’s campaign is either creating or just using these rumors to do damage to Obama. Her underhanded response on ‘60 minutes’: “He’s not a Muslim, as far as I know. (wink, wink)” was very telling. But their win at all costs strategy is not likely to bring them the nomination in the long run, but will hurt the Dems in the general election.