McCain, Romney, Clinton win; delegate count update

Here are the results for today.

Dems
Clinton 5,355 - 51 percent
Obama 4,773 - 45 percent
Edwards 396 - 4 percent
Kucinich 31 votes

GOP
Romney 22,649 - 51 percent
Paul 6,0987 - 14 percent
McCain 5,651 - 13 percent
Huckabee 3,616 - 8 percent
Thompson 3,521 - 8 percent
Giuliani 1,910 - 4 percent
Hunter 890 - 2 percent

South Carolina [GOP]
McCain 140,798 - 33 percent
Huckabee 126,187 - 30 percent
Thompson 66,824 - 16 percent
Romney 63,909 - 15 percent
Paul 15,570 - 4 percent
Giuliani 8,989 2 percent
Hunter 1,024
Tancredo 114
John Cox 83
Hugh Cort 56
Cap Fendig 23

[The Dems vote in South Carolina on Jan. 26].

Here are how the delegates stack up:

GOP
Romney 72
McCain 38
Huckabee 29
Thompson 8
Paul 6
Giuliani 2
Hunter 1

1,191 needed to nominate.

Dems
Clinton 210
Obama 123
Edwards 52
Kucinich 1

2,026 needed to nominate.

In both races, it is anyone's contest, although things are starting to sift out a bit.

Political roundup
Here is a snarky blog entry over at CBS News: ["Edwards: 'What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas'"].
Apparently, Edwards' numbers are so low in Nevada because if he did not get a certain percentage of votes in each caucus, those voters had to go to another candidate. It was a caucus process and while he may have spent more time there than the other candidates, he did pull his entire org. out of Nevada months ago and had them put everything into Iowa. Regular readers here will recall that I said this was a bad move and he should leave his people there to organize the state. But, what happened to that 25 percent the Reno Gazette Journal poll show him getting? Yikes.
Overall, the turnout was more than 107,000, a record, even though the results don't reflect that. According to the policy, county convention delegates were elected on this date and then there will be another convention to elect national delegates.
Here's hoping Edwards can put something together for South Carolina. Polls there show him around 15 to 20 percent but he is drawing white voters away from Hillary so that should help Obama win the state. Drudge has a link saying he is the "kingmaker" but there is nothing attached to the link.

Obama campaign rails against Clinton's attacks
Check this out: ["Speaking of delegate fights"].

We currently have reports of over 200 separate incidents of trouble at caucus sites, including doors being closed up to thirty minutes early, registration forms running out so people were turned away, and ID being requested and checked in a non-uniform fashion. This is in addition to the Clinton campaign’s efforts to confuse voters and call into question the at-large caucus sites which clearly had an affect on turnout at these locations. These kinds of Clinton campaign tactics were part of an entire week’s worth of false, divisive, attacks designed to mislead caucus-goers and discredit the caucus itself.

I'm glad the union is trying to do something about this. Bubba going on TV, yelling at a reporter about the caucus rules which were set up and approved by everyone almost a year ago, was despicable.
As well, the at-large precincts did not seem to perform well for Obama, according to the RGJ blogger Anjeanette Damon writes:

Maybe Barack Obama should have supported that lawsuit afterall. A look at the results of the Las Vegas Strip at-large precincts shows Obama winning only two of the nine. Hillary Clinton took the rest and by huge margins in many cases.

bama won the Luxor by 10 points and Caesars by 3 points. Compare that to Clinton's win at the Paris by 37 points.

If these were indeed Culinary dominated precincts, their legendary turnout strength has been largely overestimated.

Hmm. Interesting.

Not unlike the case of Edwards losing Nevada badly, a similar claim could be made about Romney losing South Carolina badly. David Bernstein over at the Boston Phoenix notes that Romney spent a lot of money in South Carolina: ["Don't Be Fooled -- Romney Wanted SC"]. A lot of money. And he came in fourth.

More on the recount as well as other stuff tomorrow.