Narrow win for Clinton
Sen. Hillary Clinton won the Pennsylvania primary over Sen. Barack Obama, but her victory margin was in the single digits, 9.2 percent, under the 10 percent benchmark set by her supporters. Given that this is her kind of state, with lots of older white people, it should have been much higher.
Clinton, according to official figures from the Pennsylvania Department of State, received 1,237,696 votes, or 54.6 percent, to Obama's 1,029,672 votes, or 45.4 percent. That's with 99.44 percent of precincts counted. The number of delegates she receives isn't certain because of Pennsylvania's odd way of assigning them. Fifty-five of the state's 158 delegates are assigned proportionally based on statewide totals. The other 103 are assigned proportionally based on the totals in each Congressional District. That's too much math for this early in the morning, but the results won't much changes Obama's overall lead in delegates or his lead in total popular vote.
Obama carried Philadelphia with 65 percent of the vote, and that city accounted for 280,147, or 26.8 percent, of his statewide total. He also won big, though not as big as in Philadelphia, in Dauphin, Centre, Union, Lancaster, Chester, and Delaware counties. Centre County is the home of Penn State University and Union the home of Bucknell University, the critical factors in his victories there. Obama did particularly poorly in Fayette County, where he got only 21 percent of the vote, and in the Anthracite Region, especially Luzerne and Lackawanna counties, where he did only slightly better. Gov. Rendell's endorsement of Clinton proved more important here than Sen. Bob Casey's endorsement of Obama.
Obama's strength in Dauphin County, home of Harrisburg, the state capital, was not surprising in one sense because of the signifiant black, Hispanic and Asian population here. But his strength crossed the Susquehanna River into mostly white Cumberland County, where he lost to Clinton by only 6 points. He was nearly as strong in many of the midstate counties, a spillover no doubt of the Harrisburg Patriot-News endorsement and his large campaign rallies in Harrisburg.
On the Republican side, Sen. John McCain carried all of the state's 67 counties and received 585,447 votes, or 72.7 percent of the total Republican vote. Congressman Ron Paul received 15.9 percent, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, still on the ballot despite dropping out of the race, received 11.4 percent. That McCain lost 27.3 percent of the vote in a nearly uncontested primary tells me that he is at significant risk if a viable third-party candidate emerges from the Republican religious right. That could be Ron Paul's reason for staying in the race and running radio ads attacking McCain during the primary campaign.
McCain failed to get 70 percent of the vote in 18 counties, including Dauphin. His worst was Juniata County, where he got 58.7 percent of the vote to 27.5 percent for Paul and 13.7 percent for Huckabee. Those kind of numbers suggest majority support, but with a significant disaffected minority that could throw the electoral votes of certain states to the Democratic nominee in a tight race if a strong third party candidate--such as Ron Paul--were to enter the fall campaign under, say, the Libertarian Party banner. It could be Ralph Nader all over again, but this time for the Republicans.
Pennsylvania turned out pretty much as I expected. Obama used his greater financial resources to greatly narrow the gap with Clinton in a state that should have been her's for the taking. On to Indiana for the next round in this bloody slugfest.