I'm Back

Hung out for a while at our Drinking Liberally event here in Santa Monica. What I'm seeing nationally is essentially a draw on the Democratic side. A good roundup here. Hillary got California and that's very big. She won huge among Latinos and Asians. I was in Little Tokyo in LA last weekend, and all of the signs were Hillary. I didn't know her strength in the Asian community was that great, but maybe I should have known. The Asian community was completely forgotten in this talk about the state.

Obama won blacks and, apparently, whites, and lost the state. All I can say is wow.

I've tried to delve a little bit into the district-level races to see what I can see. Based on the big wins in the ethnic communities I can see Clinton getting a lot more 3-1 splits in the 4-delegate districts than I expected, but we'll see. It's unclear where these votes are coming from thus far. CA-01 looks to be going Clinton. CA-05, Clinton. CA-29 (Schiff's district), Clinton but it's early. CA-50, Clinton but it's early. Obama is running well in those heavily African-American districts in SoCal, except for CA-36 (Long Beach).

I should note that almost NOTHING is in from the Bay Area yet, so this will tighten.

UPDATE: Obama took Missouri. I knew it was fishy that everyone was holding out. Poblano has some good info.

Only NM is still outstanding, where Obama led by ~4 points in the exit polls.

Obama:
Alabama
Alaska*
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Georgia
Idaho
Illinois
Kansas
Minnesota
Missouri
North Dakota
Utah

Hillary:
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Massachusetts
New Jersey
New York
Oklahoma
Tennessee

Too close to call:
New Mexico

Update #4: My back-of-the-envelope math has Obama winning the night by 27 delegates.

Hillary:
+39 net in New York
+37 net in California**
+17 in Arkansas
+14 in Massachusetts
+11 in New Jersey
+9 in Oklahoma
+9 in Tennessee
+5 in Arizona

Obama:
+46 in Illinois
+30 in Georgia
+25 in Minnesota
+18 in Colorado
+15 in Kansas
+12 in Idaho
+7 in Alabama
+6 in Alaska
+4 in Utah
+3 in North Dakota
+2 in Delaware
+1 in Missouri

** This assumes that her final margin is +10%. All other numbers are based on current polling results.

Might even be a better night for Obama, based on what projections I've seen in Arkansas and Massachusetts.

This is a tie and each side can play up their victories and make a case that they won. March 4, with Ohio and Texas, is going to be the key.

UPDATE: Frank Russo:

The actual vote totals available on the California Secretary of State’s site as of 9:30 p.m. are not at all representative of the state and are skewed towards the smaller counties. With 15% of the California vote in, for instance, there are no votes at all from San Francisco and from Alameda County. Los Angeles has only 8% of precincts reporting, and it is virtually impossible to tell how many of the votes shown are from vote by mail ballots versus precinct day of election ballots.

Clinton will win, but the number will not be what you're seeing right now. 10 points would be the high end.

... "Frank discussions" to be had by the Romney camp tomorrow. He needed California, and without it, he's done. A McCain/Huckabee ticket is looking pretty obvious right now. Which will drive the wingnuts up a wall.

...Chuck Todd is saying that, when all is said and done, you'll see 841 delegates for Obama, 837 for Clinton.

Exciting! And Super Tuesday is a wash. Pack your bags for Denver (God I hope not).

UPDATE: This is the clearest-eyed take on the night that I've seen.

The February 5 landscape favored Clinton, and Obama managed to not lose any of "his" states while poaching Connecticut and narrowly grabbing contested Missouri. Clinton won, but most indications are that she won't have won nearly enough delegates to put this thing out of reach.

Now the landscape gets much more favorable for Obama. On Saturday, it's Louisiana, Nebraska, and Washington. Then on Sunday it's Maine. Then Tuesday offers Maryland, DC, and Virginia. Then February 19 offers Wisconsin and Hawaii. That's a lot of states, but not a ton of delegates. On March 4 comes the big showdown in Texas and Ohio. The question is whether Obama can build up enough momentum between now and March 4 to put Clinton away, or whether Clinton can draw enough blood in the intermediate states to shut him down on the March 4 firewall.

Who wins that is anyone's guess at this point. One thing I can predict is that you'll see a lot of handwringing about how this fight is dooming the Democratic Party. It's all, as best I can tell, total nonsense. Disagreeing about which of two strong leaders should go try to implement a pretty widely agreed upon vision of national policy is a healthy thing to do. Meanwhile, the stuff that really matters for general election purposes won't for many months.

Obama survived, but he'll have to break through on March 4. There will be a lot of time and his name ID can't get much higher. If he doesn't, no matter how many delegates he's won that'll have to be it. The story is whether he can ride the wave and have it crest on March 4, or whether Clinton just beats him down in a war of attrition.

(by the way, Washington, Virginia, Maryland and Wisconsin are pretty decent-sized states, actually. If Obama swept them all we'd be onto something.)