Potomac Primary Results

Obama and McCain Conquer the Potomac:

The Potomac primaries resulted in two clean sweeps for the front runners of both political parties. Both Barack Obama and John McCain won primaries in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia. According to both MSNBC and CNN for the first time Obama is the undisputed leader in the Democratic delegate count and McCain has all but assured his place as the republican candidate. It should now be a question of when, not if Mike Huckabee will drop out if he wants to have any future in the Republican Party or any spot in a McCain post if he wins the presidency in November. 

The first results of the night came in as soon as the polls closed in Virginia; MSNBC was the first to call Obama the winner of Virginia. In the end Obama gained fifty four delegates to Clinton's 32. Obama won with 64 percent of the vote as 618,933 votes compared to thirty five percent for Clinton with 344,940 votes with 99 percent of the counties reporting. As soon as the polls closed at 8 pm, MSNBC also called the primary of Washington DC for Obama as well. According to CNN, with 75 percent of the vote Obama picked up thirteen delegates in the nation’s capital. Clinton with 24 percent of the vote gained 11 candidates. To complete a three state sweep Obama won seventeen delegates with 60 percent of the vote with 305,154 votes with 99 percent of the vote reported. Clinton got 15 delegates with 187,540 votes which were good for thirty seven percent of the vote reported. According to the MSNBC totals (non-super delegates) Obama has 1,078 delegates with Clinton falling behind with 969. In the CNN delegate total it is 1,215 for Obama with Clinton’s 1,190 which includes the super delegates. 

All three of the Republican primaries were winner take all and they all went to McCain. McCain got 16 candidates in his victory in Washington DC, 60 candidates in Virginia and 13 candidates in Maryland. According to MSNBC this gives McCain a total of 812 delegates with Huckabee still at 231. This totals show with utter certainty that the republican race is over, and the question is when will Huckabee throw in the towel? Is he risking a future in the Republican Party by refused to give this primary up? Could he still be McCain’s vice president? Of course Huckabee said that he didn’t want to be the Vice President but how many Vice President candidates in the past flatly denied that they were interested? I think he will be one of those numbers and in the end it will be Obama with John Edwards taking on McCain with Huckabee.