Return of Super Tuesday (This Time It's Personal)

12.47am Fox News declares Hillary the winner in Texas. She may not win the delegate total there but make no mistake: she's still in this race.

11.30pm Hillary has given her victory speech in Ohio. The message: the race goes on; we have stopped Obama's momentum; there are plenty of contests still to go and I'm the one who has won all the big states so far.    It's not a conclusive argument but it's certainly persuasive enough to give everyone pause before they write this campaign off.   If she manages to win Texas too tonight, where she has a slim lead with half the votes in, she has every reason to go on, at least until Pennsylvania on April 22.  Most worrying for Obama is that voters seemed to turn against him in the last few days - perhaps as a result of the mini-scandals that have erupted around him.  There is also a slight sense that the world - the media certainly, and even the voters - is slightly falling out of love with the charismatic Illinois senator. That will make for a nerve-wracking few weeks and possibly months for him,. even if he continues to enjoy a sold lead in terms of delegates.

9.30pmThe networks call Rhode Island for Hilllary. And so at last she halts the run of 12 Obama wins. Much more important, if the other exit polls are right, she is on course for a slightly battered triple crown tonight: - a modest victory in RI and hair's breadth-wins in Texas and Ohio.  A few weeks ago these narrow margins would have been regarded as almost fatal to the Hillary campaign. Tonight, after all that's happened, they will presumably be interpreted as life-saving victories.

9.15pm Brief anorak interlude. Slightly irritating to hear people who should know better saying McCain is now officially the Republican nominee. That won't actually be the case until the convention meets and the delegates vote.  Not a mere technicality this, either.  For financial reasons he's still in the primary campaign until then. Of course he now campaigns as though it were the general election (which is one of the advantages he holds over the Democrats) and he is indeed the presumptive nominee. But you never know. There are still six months to the convention and strange things can happen.

9.00pm McCain wins Texas and Rhode Island for a clean sweep on the night and is, officially, the winner of the Republican presidential primary. Just as everybody thought one year ago and just as nobody thought six months ago. What a long, strange trip it's been.

The exit poll in Texas by my count puts Hillary up 50.8 to 48.6 over Obama. Waaaay too close to call. Unless it's really badly wrong it means they're just about going to split the delegates there. but as we've said before, if Hillary wins the popular vote, even by 0.1 per cent, it will be ballooons and confetti and All Hail The Comeback Gal again.   It could be a long night, mere prelude to a long spring.

7.30pm McCain adds Ohio to Vermont and is on the cusp of clinching the Republican nomination.

Much more interesting, of course, the exits show, by my calculation, Hillary beating Obama 52-48 in Ohio. If the exits there are wrong in the same direction and on the same scale as they have been in most places (where they have overstated Obama's vote) then she should be on course for a modestly comfortable win in Ohio. 

7.10pm One straw in the Texas wind. The exit poll says late-deciding voters broke two-to-one for Hillary. Does this mean the Obama slips over Nafta cost him and that Hillary's assaults in the last few days hit home?

7.00pm First blood - wholly expected - to Obama, who wins Vermont comfortably, according to the exit polls. Vermont is a state of tree-hugging, latte-drinking, earth-shoe wearing liberals who see Obama as their saviour for a route back from industrial ruin to a state of nature so no surprises here.

6.55pm Eastern By now Tuesday evenings were supposed to be clear for American Idol and NBA basketball games.  But the tight Democratic contest means we're back for another nailbiting primary night.  As we start the evening the expectation - fed by leaks of early exit poll numbers - is that Hillary Clinton has done enough to keep her rickety show on the road. If she wins both Texas and Ohio, even by slim margins, she's surely got a ticket to the next big showdown in Pennsylvania on April 22. But we are entering a phase where spin and interpretation of results is going to be more important than raw numbers. So watch carefully how the evening unfolds.

Comments

[Tricky Dicky]

It worries me that African Americans vote overwhelmingly for Obama but White voters do not do the same for Clinton. What does this say? Surely race should should enter into politics, should it?

[don]

Well as an American supporter of Obama, can sure say how I had hoped to not drag this on. Texas is a win for Obama, because of the Caucus. Obama will have more wins for sure, but the size of Clinton's Ohio victory is unsettling: what would have happened had Florida and Michigan counted? This race could go down to the wire.