Clinton Wins Ohio, Texas; McCain Clinches GOP Nomination
Tuesday: Hillary Clinton celebrates her Ohio Democratic presidential primary victory with Gov. Ted Strickland and Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones. (AP Photo)
Hillary Clinton scored commanding victories in Ohio and Rhode Island Tuesday and squeaked out a narrow victory in Texas, breaking rival Barack Obama’s 12-contest winning streak and breathing new life into her Democratic presidential campaign.
On the Republican side, John McCain swept all four states voting Tuesday and clinched the GOP nomination, leading Mike Huckabee to drop out of the race. With his victories, McCain reached the 1,191 delegates needed to ensure he becomes his party’s nominee.
That leaves the Democrats to continue their battle.
Obama won the lead-off Vermont primary Tuesday. But Clinton, who was trailing by 110 delegates, made a full court press to slow the Illinois senator in the other states and assure party leaders that she is not out of the fight. Texas held caucuses immediately after the primary, and Obama was leading that race early on. The caucuses were responsible for awarding proportionally one-third of the state’s pledged delegates.
With her wide victory in Ohio, Clinton started to make up ground in the delegate battle. Returns showed she had 55 percent to Obama’s 43 percent in the state, which offers 141 pledged delegates.
“You know what they say — ‘As Ohio goes, so goes the nation’ … This nation’s coming back and so is this campaign,” Clinton told enthusiastic supporters at a rally in Columbus, Ohio, Tuesday night. “We’re going on, we’re going strong and we’re going all the way.
“Ohio has written a new chapter in the history of this campaign and we’re just getting started,” she said.
Obama spoke to supporters in San Antonio, Texas, unshaken by Clinton’s gains.
“No matter what happens tonight we have nearly the same delegate lead as we did this morning, and we are on our way to winning this nomination,” Obama said.
Rhode Island and Vermont have a small delegate payoff in comparison to Ohio and Texas, where results are still being counted. Those two states could be decisive in shaping the balance of the Democratic race.
Texas had emerged as the key battleground for Democrats in late polling. The two candidates had traded the lead in Texas polls for the past two weeks. For Clinton, a win there was considered crucial to keep her campaign afloat.
“You cannot overstate the importance of this evening,” said Democratic strategist Julian Epstein. “(Clinton) had a near-death political experience, from which she snatched victory.”
But Democratic strategist Bob Beckel warned against overstating the importance of Clinton’s victories, predicting the New York senator would only pick up about 20 net delegates, and still trail Obama.
“It still is a delegate game, and the momentum she has generated has no place to go,” he said.
Indeed, the campaigns tried to spin the night to their strengths, with Obama’s campaign issuing a statement that said Tuesday “was the Clinton campaign’s last best chance” to cut into Obama’s pledged delegate lead and it failed.
In fact, said Obama spokesman Bill Burton, “Clinton’s chances of regaining the delegate lead actually decreased tonight, as the number of delegates remaining dwindles.”
But Clinton’s campaign had its own spin.
“Sen. Obama poured everything he had into scoring a decisive knockout and failed,” the campaign said in a statement. “He outspent Hillary by a more than 2 to 1 margin and has — in the words of media analyst Howard Kurtz — ‘defied the laws of journalistic gravity.’ Despite these advantages, he couldn’t close the deal with voters.”
In Ohio, FOX News exit polls showed Clinton won favor with economy-minded voters, who broke for her by a margin of 52-to-47 percent. Those voters were split evenly in Texas, but the exit polls there showed Hispanics — a key voting bloc in Texas — were going for Clinton by a margin of 64-to-35 percent.
There were some kinks in the Ohio voting. A judge had ordered polling stations to remain open late in Sandusky and Cuyahoga counties, where bad weather and apparent ballot shortages hampered the voting process. Questions had been raised, however, about the lack of evidence presented in Cuyahoga to warrant the late voting.
In Vermont, Obama won across all areas and almost all groups, and took 60 to 38 percent over Clinton in the polls. In Rhode Island, Clinton won with 58 percent to Obama’s 40 percent.
The FOX News exit polls indicated Clinton was aided by some last-minute momentum ahead of the Illinois senator in three of four states. In Texas, those voters who made their choice in the last three days picked Clinton over Obama by 66-to-34 percent.
Clinton’s fortunes seemed to have turned on a series of actions by her campaign over the last week. She struck at Obama in a Texas ad Friday asking voters who they want “answering the phone” in a crisis. The campaign followed up with an ad accusing him of being “too busy” to hold any oversight hearings for a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee, and Clinton and her surrogates have consistently argued that the media was being soft on Obama.
Her campaign had already argued that Obama needed to sweep the Tuesday primaries or face renewed scrutiny from the Democratic Party. Obama had expected to hold on to his pledged delegate lead, but indicated earlier in the day that the fight would go on after the night’s races were called.
Pennsylvania, the biggest single prize left, follows on April 22. Democrats vote in Wyoming and Mississippi over the coming week.
In Texas, it is possible that Obama could lose the popular vote and still win more delegates. Areas with higher voter turnout in previous Texas elections are given proportionally more delegates in this year’s primary. Urban districts like Houston, Dallas and Austin, which generally have the higher turnout, favored Obama.
It takes 2,025 delegates to win the Democratic nomination, and slightly more than 600 remained to be picked in the 10 states that vote after Tuesday. The four Super Tuesday II states were allocating 370 delegates total.
For Republicans, 256 delegates were at stake Tuesday, and McCain had been cautiously optimistic he would earn enough to reach the 1,191 delegate threshold. He started the night with 1,014.
The night marked an extraordinary comeback for a candidate whose White House hopes were dashed eight years ago and whose second bid was left for dead eight months ago.
“Tonight my friends, we have won enough delegates to claim with confidence, humility and a great sense of responsibility that I will be the Republican nominee,” McCain told supporters in Dallas.
He said he will run a respectful general election campaign focusing on national security, trade and other issues. Clinton and Obama both called McCain to congratulate him Tuesday.
“Like all campaigns, it will have its ups and downs. But we will fight every minute of every day to make certain we have a government that is as capable, wise, brave and decent as the great people we serve,” McCain said. “That is our responsibility and I will not let you down.”
In anticipation of sealing the nomination, McCain plans to visit Republican National Committee headquarters Wednesday and the White House for the endorsement of President Bush.
Huckabee senior staffers told FOX News that the Bush endorsement accelerated their plans to withdraw from the race.
Huckabee said in Irving, Texas, that he has recognized McCain as the GOP nominee.
“I’d rather lose an election than lose the principles that got me into politics in the first place,” Huckabee said. “We aren’t going away completely. We want to be a part of helping keep the issues alive that have kept us in this race.”
McCain took nearly 75 percent of the vote in Vermont, and won all 17 delegates from the state. McCain also won 79 of the 85 delegates from Ohio, and got 13 of Rhode Island’s 17 delegates. Texas had 90 delegates up for grabs and in late counting, he won at least 69.
Huckabee had 257 delegates going into the day’s contests, and had pledged repeatedly to tough it out until one candidate reaches the 1,191 threshold. His campaign issued a statement offering its support in helping united the GOP ahead of the November general election.
FOX News’ Carl Cameron, Major Garrett, Bonney Kapp, Serafin Gomez and Aaron Bruns and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Sorry boys and girls but McCane hasn’t a china mans chance of defeating the Dem machine. Do you actually think his rise from the dust was just lucky. Or that the front states for the primaries were mostly blue states filled with moderates and independents?? McCane was the pick from the beginning — I think Romney got a revelation of this. Momentum is important and he was the pick —– and now stretch your brain to figure out why he was the pick. The oldest to run for Presidency,—never was team player but rather a maverick—- opposed tax cuts –the list goes on and on but yet he won the election.
Now you want to tell everybody to rally around the liberal Republican because he’s not as bad as the Dems—– guess what Virginia, yes he is —- the Dems will not keep any campaign promises and neither will McCane — he like them will do what they’re told to do.
This country’s only hope is for a true independent to rise up out of the crowd not affilated to neither party or indebted to any special interest group accept the American citizens.
I told you people a vote for Huck was a vote for McCain. Do you believe me now?
“How true, Michigan. Today was indeed a sad night for America, but like Governor Huckabee, we will fight on and stand by Senator’s McCain’s side. Do not waver, do not falter, do not fall- despite the loss of a prized candidate, the American spirit endures. Let not the media decide for you what you should think, look for the facts and make the choice for yourself. I have research the issues and I acknowledged that I am a fervent Christian, 100% pro-life, and support the War of Terror. I have made my choice. You select yours.
For all those who say hateful things on here:
It does not help your argument except paints you out to be more ignorant. So instead, persuade people with hard facts and not harsh words.
Let us decide the next leader of the most powerful country in the world by using logic and sound judgment. Disregard the race or sex of the candidates for these attributes do not make a good leader but their platform, the issue they stand on, and their historical records do.
And good luck with whichever candidate you decide :)”
I restate this for hope America will not succumb to all the negativity around us. I urge you to choose the candidate not on their eloquent talks and their smooth-like features but on what they truly stand for. McCain might not have been considered a true Republican but he is against abortion and support our Armed Forces and that was good enough for me. Please do not let the lives of those who fought for this country and your rights as its citizen go to waste. Choose wisely.
Babi-
Do you really think McCain is talking about 100 years of war? “Presence” and war are two totally different things and if you can’t tell the difference, you shouldn’t be voting at all.
Wow - it is really scary that some of these people on these boards are even allowed to vote.
I have 2 points to make:
Those Huckabee supporters who either write in his name or vote for either Hillary or Obama rather than McCain are totally insane. It’s not going to get Huckabee elected ( he is going away -never to be heard from again) and it is supporting the efforts of a party who are just salivating to get more money out of our pockets.
Those who support Hillary because of her “experience” are also in the insane category. She has no experience to speak of. I keep hearing supporters say that she can fix the healthcare because she failed at it the first time crack me up. I think these same people should go to a surgeon who failed his medical exams because now “he knows what not to do.”
I’m sorry to tell you, but John McCain is electable and will not lose to the two socialists running for the Democratic nomination. If you choose not to vote, then YOU are the one that will get whatever comes your way and cannot complain about it.
The only person(s) in this campaign that have lost their dignity are Bill and Hill. They have used tactics to pull out these wins that are equavalent to sleeze. Voters are getting manipulated by the Clintons, whom have made it an art form. Sad to see the amount of uneducated people buying into them again. Obama, McCain and Huckabee are gentlemen and have a lot of dignity. Billary will do anything to get back the White House, no matter the consequences of their dirty politics to get there. Makes me sick.