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Super Tuesday Live Blog by Rick Klein

February 06, 2008 12:17 AM

12:50 am ET: I'm going to call it a night (or a morning) on the blog. McCain is the night's big winner, YET he may have a reinvigorated Mike Huckabee to contend with. Clintons take the clear edge BUT may not come out tonight with the most delegates, the most votes, or the most states.

Again -- this is why they vote. And we're still watching this wide open race...

Check back tomorrow for The Note's full wrap, analysis, and look ahead...

12:34 am ET: Missouri is bouncing back and forth all night. Obama could really use another big win, in addition to Connecticut, now that California is lost.

12:28 am ET: The astute Karen Travers notes -- With more than 11 million votes cast in the Democratic contests nationwide, Hillary Clinton leads Barack Obama in the national popular vote by only 46,000 votes -- less than 1% difference.

12:26 am ET: ROMNEY GETS COLORADO'S CAUCUSES.

12:19 am ET: It's Super Wednesday now, as our Sam Donaldson pointed out on ABC News Now. And MCCAIN TAKES CALIFORNIA -- a very, very nice night for him just got the biggest cherry possible on top.

12:15 am ET: ABC calls California for Clinton -- this is THE BIGGEST ONE OF THE NIGHT, BAR NONE. At bottom, her strengths held. Obama will win more states, but Clinton will win a big edge in the popular vote, and a decisive edge in the number of delegates.

From our polling unit:

"Hillary Clinton won overwhelming support among Hispanic voters in California, while Obama narrowly led among whites (49% to  43 %) and claimed about  eight in 10 black voters.  About three in 10 primary voters were Hispanic (29 percent), a record share of Latinos in a California Democratic primary electorate  (they've never before exceeded 17 percent in CA)."

   California Democratic primary
         Hispanic voters
Clinton        66 %
Obama          33

"Obama ran particularly strong among white men, beating Clinton 60% to 33%  while losing to Clinton among white women 53% to 40% ."   

"Clinton did particularly well among older Latinos, beating Obama  78 % to  21 % among Hispanics 60 or older. And she cut into one of Obama's strongest groups -younger voters - claiming  47 % of those 18-29 to his  51%."

"About eight in 10 California Democratic primary voters were rank-and-file Democrats, and they went solidly for Clinton (55% to  41 %). Half were liberals, dividing their votes  equally  between Obama and Clinton."

12:08 am ET: CLINTON TAKES ARIZONA -- a mild blow to Obama, who would have liked this one. And further complicating a wacky evening. And MCCAIN TAKES MISSOURI.

12:02 am ET: Obama still speaking past midnight, and it's another one of his good ones. But words will be subsumed by Missouri and California still tonight.

11:57 pm ET: HUCKABEE TAKES TENNESSEE. Dizzy yet? What a whirlwind.

11:56 pm ET: Yet another red state for OBAMA: UTAH, ABC News reports.

11:53 pm ET: In keeping with his practice, lots of little shots at Clinton in Obama's speech -- the war, lobbyist money, looking back or looking forward, Iran.

11:48 pm ET: This may be the best we're going to get out of California for a while: "In California, at this point ABC News does not have enough information yet to project a winner in either race.  But we can say that our analysis of the vote in so far indicates that Clinton and McCain are both leading."

The margin matters, but this remains the big prize of the night -- or of tomorrow morning.

11:43 pm ET: And here comes Obama . . . His money line comes early: "There is one thing on this February night that we do not need the final results to know: Our time has come. Our time has come, our movement is real, and change is coming to America."

It is real, but we don't know whether his time has come yet. It sure looks like it's coming. It did not arrive tonight.

11:40 pm ET: As McCain speaks, ABC calls GEORGIA FOR HUCKABEE. Hello, sir. Welcome back. We've missed you.

11:38 pm ET: McCain declares himself the frontrunner -- a bold move on a good (but hardly great) night for McCain. That's a lot coming from a superstitious candidate. But he wanted to end this tonight -- yet he may have twice as many serious challengers as he did yesterday. After helping Huckabee win West Virginia, be careful what you wish for.

11:35 pm ET: California awards its delegates proportionally on both the Democratic and Republican sides. And still -- don't expect it to be called any time in the next few hours. It's going to almost certainly drive the day-after coverage

11:33 pm ET: And add MINNESOTA to ROMNEY'S collection too. Almost enough wins tonight for a press release declaring victory. Almost.

11:27 pm ET: More good Western news from ROMNEY: He takes MONTANA, not a huge cache, but he gets all 25 delegates.

11:23 pm ET: Two more OBAMA caucus wins: IDAHO and COLORADO. These sort of quiet wins may be enough for him to grab the delegate advantage tonight.

11:20 pm ET: STILL a tight race in Missouri:

11:18 pm ET: The last of the major candidates should be speaking soon -- McCain and Obama. I'm very curious about whether we get a "victory" speech from Obama -- I'm fairly confident we'll get one from McCain.

11:08 pm ET: We're nowhere near calling a winner in California, where polls just closed, BUT consider this from the exit polls:

Hillary Clinton won overwhelming support among Hispanic voters in California, while Obama narrowly led among whites (49% to 44%) and claimed about three-quarters of all black voters. Preliminary exit poll results found that about three in 10 primary voters were Hispanic (29 percent), a record share of Latinos in a California Democratic primary electorate  (they've never before exceeded 17 percent in CA).

They went 2-1 for Obama.
 
Clinton did particularly well among older Latinos, beating Obama 76% to 23% among Hispanics 60 or older. And she cut into one of Obama's strongest groups -younger voters - claiming 46% of those 18-29 to his 54%.

More than eight in 10 California Democratic primary voters were rank-and-file Democrats, and they went solidly for Clinton (55% to 40%). Half were liberals, dividing their votes between Obama (48%) and Clinton (47%).

11:05 pm ET: Mitt Romney gets a win in a state he hasn't lived in! NORTH DAKOTA'S REPUBLICANS ARE GOING FOR ROMNEY, a winner-take-all state with 23 RNC delegates.

11:03 pm ET: Is this the power of immigration? Gary Langer, on why it took so long to call Arizona: "McCain's challenge in Arizona was that again he lost conservatives there - 47 percent for Romney, 36 percent for McCain - and conservatives accounted for 66 percent of the AZ GOP voters."

11 pm ET: ABC calls ARIZONA FOR MCCAIN. It took a bit longer than he would have preferred to lock down his home state, surely, but that's another winner-take-all state (53 delegates) for McCain.

10:52 pm ET: As Clinton speaks, the crowd at Obama HQ in Chicago booed, per ABC's David Wright. She delivers her basic stump to a national television audience -- including a shout-out to the website -- trying to build an e-mail list, are we?

10:50 pm ET: Indeed, the Obama spin is focusing on Connecticut -- first line from a memo just put out: "Surprisingly strong performances in Senator Clinton’s backyard has Senator Obama in a strong position on Super Tuesday." Also -- they point out he's won five of eight "red states" to have winners so far.

10:49 pm ET: Anyone else catch Bill Richardson on ABC just now? Did he stop shaving since he left the race?

10:46 pm ET: We're told to expect Clinton to speak momentarily -- interesting that the campaign would decide to go before Obama speaks, ceding him what will probably be primo position.

10:44 pm ET: Another caucus pickup for Obama: MINNESOTA WILL GO TO OBAMA, ABC reports.

10:43 pm ET: Some more details on Connecticut, from our polling unit: "Women divided more narrowly in Connecticut than in states where Clinton performed better - she won them by a fairly narrow 52-45 percent, while Obama won men by a much broader 56-38 percent. Again there were many more women voting - 59 percent, but that 18-point Obama lead among men made the difference for Obama."

"Additionally, the two ran very closely among white voters - 49-47 percent. Blacks accounted for 8 percent of voters in the Connecticut Democratic primary - a far smaller share than in some other states - but Obama won 72 percent of them. And unlike Clinton's sizable lead among Hispanics in many other states, in Connecticut Hispanics, 6 percent of voters, favored Obama by a 10-point margin."

So not only is it in Clinton's backyard, it's a state where Obama actually did break through beyond the demographics that reside in his wheelhouse.

10:37 pm ET: Probably Obama's biggest win of the night so far: ABC is calling CONNECTICUT FOR OBAMA. Clinton had the edge in the polls right up to election day, and this borders the state Clinton represents in the Senate. This will be on the list of states the Obama campaign will try to drill into our collective skulls over the next few days.

10:33 pm ET: Romney has lots of friends behind them -- but could have used them elsewhere in the country. "One thing that's clear is that this campaign's going on," he said. Yes -- but you may not be part of it.

Now, to be fair, he can stay in this thing as long as he wants (or as long as Ann allows him to keep writing checks).

10:28 pm ET: The home states (and adopted home states) continue to come through: OBAMA WILL TAKE KANSAS, ABC News projects. He had Gov. Kathleen Sebelius' support, and he visited his grandfather's hometown last week to highlight lesser-known aspects of his biography.

This is one of the red states with caucuses where Obama is expecting to win -- with Alaska, Idaho, and North Dakota also on that list tonight.

10:16 pm ET: The Clinton campaign is first out of box turning Super Tuesday into a fundraising appeal: "From Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Arkansas, to New Jersey, Massachusetts, and my home state of New York, the good news just keeps coming in. We're off to a great start tonight, and I know it would not have been possible without you."

10:12 pm ET: NORTH DAKOTA GOES TO OBAMA, per ABC News. There's the race, right there in Fargo.

10:09 pm ET: Huckabee is calling it a "two-man race." Classic line. Now -- will he start swinging at McCain? Or will he continue to play it safe and friendly? It's gotten him this far . . . but it's not likely to take him all the way.

10:03 pm ET: Early returns are encouraging for Clinton in Missouri and New Jersey. Those would be huge wins for her -- those plus California would make her the big winner tonight, by far.

10 pm ET: At poll closing time in Utah, ABC is calling OKLAHOMA FOR MCCAIN and UTAH FOR ROMNEY. So Romney gets his long-awaited second victory of the evening, a total non-surprise. He has to win at least a state or two where he hasn't lived -- he already won his native Michigan, and lost New Hampshire (where he has a vacation home), so he's running out of states where he say he lives or has lived.

As Romney's rough night continues, consider this Romney quote from earlier in the day (before any returns came in), courtesy of ABC's John Berman: "I will look at the results on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning along with my team as well as advisers who care very deeply about the future of the country and will assess, 'What does this tell us?' And there are so many possible different scenarios, there are so many different things that could happen from a very strong finish to a not-so-strong finish to strong in some states to weaker in other states to strength in one region to not strength overall - these permutations are so significant in their very ability, that I'd think you'd have to wait and see the numbers to make any kind of assessment as to where it’s going to lead you."

You can hear the management consultant in him -- and if he approaches his campaign with appropriate detachment, he's going to have to make some touch choices pretty shortly now.

9:43 pm ET: DopeyDwarf -- Florida awarded no delegates, much to the Clinton campaign's consternation. The state will send delegates to the convention -- and the smart money says they'll end up being seated as delegates, since in all likelihood the nomination will be wrapped up by then. If it isn't -- get ready for a big summer intra-party fight in Denver.

9:40 pm ET: From ABC's Jake Tapper: Huckabee campaign manager Chip Saltsman says, given the returns coming in, "Romney keeps talking about how this is a two-man race. We agree with him. And the two men are John McCain and Mike Huckabee." What we'll hear fom Huckabee tonight - about winning with message, not money, and about how he can consolidate and unite conservatives.

9:34 pm ET: Huckabee is making a strong claim to being taken seriously again. He could win more states and more delegates than Romney tonight. I don't know that that leaves him well-positioned to challenge McCain, but it could boost him and set up a big choice -- does he take on his friend as directly as, say, Romney has?

9:29 pm ET: Our polling folks see New Jersey playing out like much of the country, with gender and racial gaps: "Women made the difference for Clinton in New Jersey, she won them by 54-44 percent, losing men by about the same margin - but women were the bigger group, accounting for 58 percent of voters. She also won Hispanic as well as white voters, while Obama prevailed among blacks. . . . There was a massive generation gap in New Jersey, with Obama winning young voters by 30 points, Clinton winning seniors by the same margin."

9:26 pm ET: Another ABC projection: OBAMA WILL WIN ALABAMA. Another decent-sized Southern state in his column. And another indication that this evening is providing a split decision from Democrats.

9:24 pm ET: ABC projects MCCAIN WILL WIN NEW YORK. Put another winner-take-all state -- the biggest on the map today -- in McCain's column. He can thank Rudy and George Pataki. And he is seeing his delegate lead swell.

9:23 pm ET: Louise -- I think it's too early to call it a good night or a bad night for either Democrat. Surely they both have enough to point to (and spin) victory regardless of what else happens.

9:20 pm ET: One of the few storylines that appear safe to discern at this hour: This is a difficult night for Mitt Romney. He has only one victory to show for the evening so far -- his home state. He'll sure take Utah as well. BUT if he takes California later tonight, much will be forgiven and forgotten. If not -- time to decide how many more checks you can write, Mitt.

9:18 pm ET: ABC calls NEW JERSEY FOR CLINTON. Can you hear those sighs of relief over at Camp Clinton? A big one to pull out -- she is definitely holding her own, despite a rough 10-day stretch for her campaign.

9:05 pm ET: ABC calling DELAWARE FOR OBAMA. What a night so far -- states are falling into both columns. No clear winner tonight yet.

9:03 pm ET: ABC calling ALABAMA FOR HUCKABEE. Get out a scorecard -- voters are again sending all sort of messages. It's not looking like a McCain sweep, not at all, though he's still having a pretty good night.

9 pm ET: At poll closing time, ABC is projecting NEW YORK FOR CLINTON. Not a surprise at all -- but we'll be watching the margin closely as the evening progresses.

Clinton "ate into Obama's strongest voter group, claiming 39% of all votes cast by black voters in New York," per Gary Langer. "That's his smallest share of African-Americans, and Clinton's highest, in any state voting today."

8:57 pm ET: ABC calls MASSACHUSETTS FOR CLINTON. Big, big win for her -- Kerry plus Kennedy plus Deval Patrick = a Clinton victory. That's intimidating. (And props to Mayor Tom Menino, who I used to cover up in Boston -- big win for his machine over basically everyone else's.)

The Clinton campaign is labeling it the "upset of the night." It's not that, but it's a huge boost to Clinton -- something to point to even if the rest of the night goes sour.

8:53 pm ET: To the Paul followers -- thanks, as always, for clicking. But until or unless Ron Paul starts registering in the voting, I can't imagine me or anyone else really focusing on him too much.

8:50 pm ET: We have a squeaker in Missouri -- fast becoming (if it wasn't already) one of the handful of states that will dictate the evening's winners and losers. On the GOP side, Gary Langer, writes, "Huckabee is doing best among evangelicals, who account half of Missouri Republicans, and among voters who want a candidate who shares their values. Romney holds second place in these groups. McCain, however, won among the fifth of voters who want a candidate who has the right experience, as well as among the quarter of voters looking mainly for a straight-talker. Romney ran runs a close second on experience."

"The Missouri Democratic race also is close. Change is the primary attribute voters are looking for in a candidate, as has been the case in earlier states, with just over half saying so, and Obama beat Clinton 2-1 among them. 'Change' has long been Obama's strong suit. But about two in 10 say they're looking  mainly for experience, and Clinton dominates here as in earlier states, taking just over nine in 10 of these voters, her strongest showing among 'experience' voters so far this season." 

8:40 pm: Connecticut and New Jersey are still pending on the Democratic side -- this is more than the Clinton campaign wanted to sweat the tri-state area.

8:35 pm: ABC is calling DELAWARE FOR MCCAIN. With it comes all of the state's 18 delegates -- and another Northeastern state in the McCain column.

8:31 pm: Well -- what we said about race earlier, we can throw that out in Tennessee. From ABC's Gary Langer: "In the Tennessee Democratic race, race proved the dramatic difference. Whites in Tennessee went strongly for Clinton - 65-24 percent over Obama. And while Obama won 77 percent of blacks, they were a smaller group than in other southern states - 29 percent of voters were blacks, vs. half in Georgia and Alabama."

8:30 pm ET: Polls just closed in Arkansas, and ABC is projecting ARKANSAS FOR HUCKABEE AND CLINTON. It was basically a home game for both of them, and Arkansas voters are loyal -- 61 percent of GOP voters had a favorable opinion of Huckabee, and 85 percent of Democratic voters had a favorable opinion of Clinton, who was the state's first lady before she was the nation's first lady.

This is a big state for evangelicals, and Huckabee needed this win rather badly. (Wonder if he's winning enough today, regardless of what happens from here, to stay in the race -- and he's shown that he's a threat for as long as he's in the race.)

And we're hearing Romney is about 30 minutes away from addressing his crowd in Boston. Sounds like someone has an early bedtime (or doesn't want to wait up for California).

8:23 pm ET: Final Illinois exit polls are in, and Obama won white women in his home state 61-38. Like in Iowa, white voters seem more inclined to support him in places where they know Obama better.

8:17 pm ET: ABC calling Tennessee for Clinton -- a big-ish win for her, in a state where she had the edge but Obama was showing some strength. Some Clinton spin: "For months, the Obama campaign has been spinning that they have a monopoly on red states; tonight we showed that they don't."

8:05 pm: Bad omen at Huckabee HQ: Power went out, per ABC's Jake Tapper. Tornados in the state could impact turnout -- polls don't close there until 8:30 pm ET.

8 pm ET: BIG hour for poll closings. Based on exit poll data, in the Democratic primary ABC News projects: OKLAHOMA FOR CLINTON, ILLINOIS FOR OBAMA.

On the Republican side, MASSACHUSETTS FOR ROMNEY, NEW JERSEY, CONNECTICUT, AND ILLINOIS FOR MCCAIN.

So Romney can breathe a little easier -- he wins his home state. But that's a proportional state (as is Illinois) McCain just won two big winner-take-all states: New Jersey (52 delegates) and Connecticut (27). Remember tonight: Not all wins are created equal. Northeastern Republicans aren't showing Romney much love -- except in his home state.

ABC's polling unit on McCain's win in Connecticut: "John McCain did well enough with conservatives in Connecticut to win the state on the basis of his overwhelming support among moderate voters." This was pretty much a head-to-head win for McCain; Huckabee wasn't much of a factor in the Nutmeg State.

Obama is cruising to a huge win in his home state of Illinois, as expected. He's got a big edge among white women in the state, 61-38. Latino voters split just about evently between the two -- not a great sign for Obama tonight.

On the Republican side in Illinois, McCain won across the board, "including mainline Republicans and evangelicals as well as his more customary core support groups, moderates and independents," per ABC's Gary Langer. "According to preliminary exit poll results, Rudy Giuliani’s endorsement played well here; almost half of GOP voters said it was important in their decision, and this group went heavily to McCain."

7:58 pm ET: Lou -- I'd just mention that we at ABC DO NOT make projections until after a state's polls are closed. We make calls only after the calls can't impact voters' choices, since these elections are state-by-state ballots.

7:50 pm ET: We now know why Hillary Clinton never talked about Super Tuesday without mentioning American Samoa -- ABC is projecting her as the winner in the territory. She'll probably pick up two of American Samoa's 3 pledged delgates.

7:36 pm ET: A valid point, HuckabeeRocks. Jennifer Rubin of Commentary Magazine's blog raises the intriguing possibility: "If Mike Huckabee, as yours truly suggested might happen, beats all the odds and gets more delegates than Romney tonight will the talk radio anti-McCain voices holler for Romney to drop out and get out of Huckabee’s way?"

7:32 pm: This just in from the Clinton campaign, labeled as "Surrogate alert: Super Tuesday talking points" (and you tell me whether this is actually reacting to today's events, or whether they were prepared in advance: "We’re excited by what we’re seeing. We have 21 states that are still outstanding where we expect to pick up a significant number of new delegates. To be sure, both campaigns have a long night ahead of them – but we feel very good about the numbers that we’re seeing."

The memo then goes on to argue that the Obama campaign put far more effort into Georgia than Clinton has. "Polls have consistently showed Sen. Obama with wide lead over Sen Clinton. That lead has only widened over time."

And an update with the final wave of exit polls in Georgia: Obama actually lost among white men and white women, but it was close among white men, 49-46. Among black voters, Obama won 88-11. Wow. It wasn't that long ago that we were all writing stories about how the Clintons would split the black vote with Obama.

7:25 pm: The Obama campaign is talking up the Georgia win, particularly the racial breakdown. It looks like he got 43 percent of white voters -- compared to 24 percent in South Carolina a week and a half ago. The big concern out of South Carolina was, Is Barack Obama now the "black" candidate? Georgia has delivered its answer: No.

7:01 pm ET: I'll be on ABC News Now for much of the night, in between blogging. Check us out here.

7 pm ET: Georgia's polls have closed, and ABC IS PROJECTING OBAMA AS THE WINNER IN GEORGIA. This gives Obama an edge in the biggest delegate prize in the South -- 87 pledged delegates are at stake in Georgia.

This is not a huge surprise -- polls suggested a double-digit victory was likely -- and Obama appears to have received a huge share of black votes, with 86-13 edge that mirrors the advantage he's had in other states. But ABC's polling director, Gary Langer, says that Obama may also have narrowly beaten Clinton among white men in Georgia (50-45 percent in preliminary exit poll results) -- picking up voters that had supported John Edwards in the past.

(It also gives Obama the first hour of media coverage -- with nothing else to talk about yet, this win will get outsized coverage.)

On the Republican side, the race can't be called yet. Get this -- it's a THREE-WAY race according to exit polls. You've gotta think that, without Huckabee in the mix, Romney would be winning the state going away. This could be a major theme of the eveving, the Huckster hurting the Mittster.

6:05 pm ET: A quick read on the preliminary exit polls, taken together across all the states -- interpret as you will. First, change is swamping experience as the top quality on Democrats' minds, by a 52-23 margin. Hispanics are showing up in almost equal numbers to African-Americans -- I truly don't know how to read that one. Early exit polls (which may be way off because of who votes early) show decent but not spectacular turnout among younger voters.

On the Republican side, higher-than-expected turnout among conservatives and evangelicals. And "shares my values" is substantially more important than "experience" as a quality they want in a candidate.

5:12 pm ET: The buzz early in the day was Mitt Romney seeming to slam Bob Dole. I do understand his point -- Dole was the next in line candidate, from the Senate, and that didn't work out too well for the GOP. But how will the slight play in Kansas, where the Republican caucuses will be held on Saturday? Here's guessing that party loyalists in Kansas sort of think Bob Dole is a deity. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., is pretty sure of how it's going to play...

4:58 pm ET: Our first major marking point of the evening will come at 7 pm ET, when Georgia's polls close. The biggest prize of the south... But the main events will come at 8 pm ET (10 states close polls), and then some time (probably well) after 11 pm ET, when the California polls close.

There are lots of ways to judge winners and losers -- overall popular vote, number of states won, number of delegates won. In determining who did well and who didn't, I'd recommend using some combination of those three measurements. All have their own roles in tonight's coverage.

4:45 pm ET: Because there's so little else to do on election days themselves (witness the candidates themselves voting and then going essentially dark today) . . .

Coming into the evening, Barack Obama has reason to ooze confidence, while Hillary Clinton's folks seem worried. Consider this: Has Clinton "won" a single news cycle since Obama's landslide victory 10 days ago, in South Carolina? Since then, we've had the Kennedy endorsement(s), news that Obama roughly tripled Clinton's fundraising in January, and polls that have consistently shown Obama surging, both nationally and in the Feb. 5 states.

Then, today came news that Sen. Clinton has accepted three debate invitations -- including one on Fox News, which is sure to enrage the liberal base. A convenient time to accept such invites -- leading candidates almost never want MORE opportunities to stumble. Sen. Obama has no incentive to agree to any of the forums quickly.

I just spoke to a smart Democratic operative who offered a quick way to look at tonight on the Democratic side. Three key contests could tell the tales we care about -- New Jersey, Missouri, and California. Whoever wins two could be tonight's winner, particularly if one of those two is California. And considering Clinton's long-held edge in NJ and CA, Obama wins there would be huge. There would then be one frontrunner for the Democratic nomination, and it wouldn't be Clinton.

3:55 pm ET: Happy Super Tuesday everyone -- Rick Klein here from ABC's The Note. I'll be live-blogging the election results all night tonight, in a running conversation about what this unprecedented day in American politics means.

We already have our first results in -- the West Virginia state Republican convention, a caucus-style event that took place this afternoon. Don't read too much into this -- only 18 delegates were awarded to the winner, Mike Huckabee -- but this is a semi-significant blow to Mitt Romney. First, Romney needs all the wins he can get today, and he was really counting on this one to power himself into the evening's news coverage. They were so confident that a top adviser told ABC's John Berman yesterday: "You are going to want to be there. We are going to win there."

Then there's the manner of the loss. Whether or not there was an explicit deal, it's very clear from the vote allocation that John McCain's supporters went with Mike Huckabee on the second ballot. This can't be replicated in most states (there's no re-voting until someone gets to 50 percent in primary states) but this is a prime example of why Huckabee's candidacy is a threat to Romney. Huckabee is almost certainly taking social conservative votes away from Romney today. And McCain supporters in West Virginia used Huckabee to play a strategic game, using the system to deny Romney a batch of delegates.

Romney campaign manager Beth Myers is trying to make the loss part of Romney's anti-Washington message: "Sadly, Senator McCain cut a Washington backroom deal in a way that once again underscores his legacy of working against Republicans who are interested in championing conservative policies and rebuilding the party."

But as the CEO of the West Virginia Republican Presidential Convention, Bob Fish, told ABC News' Teddy Davis, "Welcome to politics."

And, just maybe, welcome to a long night for Mitt Romney.

February 6, 2008 in Tancredo, Tom, Thompson, Fred | Permalink | User Comments (171)

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