Obama Wins Super Tuesday Delegates
Illinois Senator Obama Sets Tone for Future Primaries
With voting over & election results accumulating, Barack Obama can claim victory in yesterday's Tsunami Tuesday pseudo-national primary by winning 14 of 22 states - 64%.
Senator Barack Obama can assert victory after yesterday’s broad win. By capturing more states than Senator Hillary Clinton; Obama was able to offset her win in the coastal delegate rich states of California and New York. Sam Stein of the Huffington Post reported, “...NBC News has put the delegate count from Super Tuesday tentatively in favor of Sen. Barack Obama: 841 to 837.” Rival CBS News “estimates Clinton has won 641 of the night's available delegates compared to Obama's 643.” Finally, Obama Campaign Manager David Plouffe told reporters (after receiving data from delegate expert Jeff Berman, who caused the AP to reverse its error in the Nevada delegate count:) "Obama won 9 more delegates than Hillary Clinton on Tuesday...845 delegates to Clinton's 836....By winning a majority of delegates and a majority of the states, Barack Obama won an important Super Tuesday victory over Senator Clinton...."
Another impressive result for Obama is his diverse appeal in all regions of the nation. Ari Melber reported in Wednesday morning’s Huffington Post that senior Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod “reiterated the campaign also seized on the [voting] results as evidence that Obama has more national appeal than Clinton.” Melber raised the electability issues the Obama campaign has started to use intensely. “[Obama] not only won more states, but racked up victories over 60 percent in seven states [Clinton only 1 state]….More consequentially, he won independents by large margins in most regions, including states in Clinton's column, such as Arizona and New Jersey….”
When considering his previous wins in South Carolina and Iowa along with his delegate win in Nevada; Obama’s campaign believes it is setting the correct tone going forward. David Axelrod told MSNBC “the results gave the campaign…optimism," noting that the future primary days would involve fewer states, making for a more manageable challenge.
Obama’s Super Tuesday state wins by geographical distribution.
- Northeast: Connecticut & Delaware
- South: Alabama & Georgia (South Carolina earlier)
- Northern Plains: Minnesota & North Dakota
- Mid West: Illinois, Kansas & Missouri (Iowa earlier)
- Rocky Mountain: Colorado, New Mexico*, Utah
- West Coast: Alaska & Idaho (in Nevada Obama won more delegates by 13 – 12 over Clinton)
Whatever the ultimate voting numbers and delegate count results will show, Obama’s claim to leader status may be supportable. Ultimately the results are determined by the number of delegates the candidate has in his or her corner. If nothing else, Obama can claim to have the opposition Clinton camp concerned and thinking about this delegate factor (probably for the first time in a serious manner.) Jay Carson, a spokesman for the Clinton campaign, conceded in an interview to MSNBC Tuesday night that “Obama might even win more Super Tuesday delegates.” He also acknowledged that “Obama was well positioned to win several of the contests between now and March 4.” Chuck Todd, NBC News’ political director, said “Clinton could end up with the most votes at the end of the evening, but the delegate count could be nearly even, with Obama winning 841 to Clinton’s 837.
* Obama leads (63,011 to 62,493) at the time of this writing with 92% of the votes counted.
