Tuesday, January 8, 2008

McCain Comeback

Even though John McCain had to split Independant votes with Obama, he managed to pull out a victory over the other Republican candidates in New Hampshire. In a state where 44% of the registered voters are Independant, Obama and McCain were supposed to have an advantage. However, Romney was the governer of Massachusetts and he campaigned heavily in New Hampshire. This was supposed to be the state neither McCain nor Romney could lose, although McCain won with about 8%. The Iowa winner dropped to number three with only 12% of the Republican votes. However, McCain also won New Hampshire when he was fighting Bush for the nomination in 2000, and he didn't manage to win. In a CNN exit poll, Romney was leading among voters who said policy was their most important reason for voting. McCain was leading among voters who said they voted more on personality. McCain also doesn't have the Independant advantage he had against Bush in this race. CNN exit polls show that McCain has about a 6% edge over Romney in both Independant, and registered Republican votes. Giuliani is battling Ron Paul for 4th places, both with 9% of the votes.

The Democrats have a verv close race between Clinton and Obama, with Clinton having a slight edge. CNN has projected that Edwards with finish in 3rd, he currently has 17% of the vote. Richardson has a dissapointing 4% of the vote. Obama hasn't been able to win with the split Independant support. With 23% of the precincts reporting, Clinton has 40% to Obama's 35%.

The most interesting that I found during this primary was that CNN exit polls show that the #1 issue to voters is the state of the economy. Iraq is in 2nd place. This hold true for BOTH parties. This is very interesting seeing as the candidates aren't paying as much attention to the economy as they should be. However, thanks to polls, I'm sure that the candidates will begin to talk about their economic plans more. I'm sure voters are looking forward to hearing their plans at end of January, during the last debates before Super Tuesday.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is obviously a big win for Hillary Clinton after losing the Iowa primary, which makes the race a lot more interesting.

On the Republican side, McCain's win definitely helped garner him more attention, but he still only has 10 delegates.

Both the Democratic and Republican sides have very interesting races right now, and it will be exciting when Super Tuesday comes and front runners start to become clearer.

benji said...

I don't think that this win for Clinton was that big of a deal. She got 9 delegates; Obama got 9 delegates, since she only won by 2%. Obama has 25 total delegates now, and Clinton has 24. Let's not get too excited yet.

Derek Lee said...

I agree with Angela. The New Hampshire primary was a big win for Clinton. Had Obama won the election many Democratic leaders would have had more of a reason to support his candidacy. Now the race has become a lot more competitive and the candidates are neck to neck. As we have discussed in class the beginning primaries tend to be the most important, and with Clinton's win the nomination is up for grabs.