Super Tuesday - The Democrats

Well this has certainly been an interesting night for the Democrats! Super Tuesday has ended...nothing. The race continues to Saturday, and Sunday, and Tuesday and Tuesday and Tuesday... The Democrats will continue fighting for a little while to come. Just look at how the races break down to see the extent to which the race for the Democratic nomination is truly divided.

Hillary Clinton wins: Arizona, Arkansas, CALIFORNIA, Massachussetts, New Jersey, NEW YORK, Oklahoma and Tennessee.

Barack Obama wins: Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Conneticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, ILLINOIS, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota and Utah.

In just plain number of states Barack Obama has the edge, but in terms of big states Clinton has the edge with wins in New York and California. No candidate has made a decisive breakthrough this evening, though both now have big bragging rights about the different states and regions in which they have performed well. I can't yet give any kind of breakdown on delegates (will later in the week) because it'll take a while to work out how they get allocated to the different delegates because of the eccentricities of local rules.

Let's look at some of the states:

NEW YORK and ILLIONOIS - Clinton and Obama took New York and Illionois, the states they respectively represent, which was sort of predictable. However, Obama did better in New York than Clinton did in Illionois, which could be indicative of the ability that Obama has to penetrate around the country.

CALIFORNIA - At time of writing the California returns are still coming in, though many networks have already called it for Clinton. The polls closed a bit in the days leading up to Super Tuesday, but it looks like Clinton retained her lead from 2007 in California.


Two things are clear looking at the poll numbers - something potentially negative and something definitely positive. The potentially negative thing about tonight is the gut-wrenching indecision of Democratic voters over their preferred nominee. Just look at how divided things are and see the way in which the Democrats are unable to coalesce around a single nominee. In only 3 contests - Arkansas, Idaho and Kansas - did one of the candidates drop below 30% of the vote. In every other contest both candidates drew at the very least one third of the votes cast. What's positive in this? Well, though Democratic voters are still very unsure about who to support, they would be happy with either candidate. 71/2% of Obama supporters would be happy with a Clinton nomination and the same number of Clinton supporters would be happy with an Obama nomination.

The result of tonight's contests? The Democrats are having a lot of fun picking their nominee. Though it's a difficult decision for them to make, they are happy to make it. We can only hope that the candidates maintain the spirit of this contest - a hopeful search for the next President of the United States - and not go on the attack after tonight. The candidates can ruin this for the voters. I can only hope that they won't.