Live Blog/Open Thread: New Hampshire Primary Results

Posted: February 9, 2016 | Author: | Filed under: U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , | 138 Comments

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Here we Go!

New Hampshire is still voting, but the results will be coming in soon. As promised, here’s a fresh thread to discuss the outcomes on both sides, but feel free to discuss anything you wish. This is an open thread. Information is coming in from exit polls.

According to CNN, half of NH voters decided on a candidate in the past couple few days, just as I have been saying all along. CNN reports: Early exit polls: N.H. voters concerned with economy, government.

The early results of the New Hampshire exit polls find a Republican race centered on discontent with both the federal government and the Republican Party, where voters’ preferences remained unsettled until the final days of the contest.

Nearly half of GOP voters interviewed as they left their polling places around New Hampshire Tuesday said they didn’t make a final decision about whom to support until the last few days, and about two-thirds said recent debates were important to their choice.

Republican voters expressed deep worries about both the economy (three-quarters were very worried) and the threat of terrorism (6-in-10 very worried). About 9-in-10 said they were dissatisfied with the federal government, including about 4-in-10 who were angry about the way it was working. And for many, the dissatisfaction extends to the GOP itself. Half said they felt betrayed by politicians from the Republican Party, and about the same share said they wanted the next president to be from outside the political establishment.

Though Democrats voting on Tuesday were less apt to say they felt betrayed by their party or to express anger with the federal government, about three-quarters said they were worried about the economy. About 4-in-10 said they thought life for the next generation of Americans would be worse than life today, and 9-in-10 said they thought the nation’s economy favored the wealthy.

Still, Democrats who went to the polls Tuesday — to vote in a race featuring two seasoned politicians — were more apt than Republicans to say they wanted the next president to have experience in politics, only about one-quarter said they preferred a president from outside the political establishment.

Only about one-quarter of Democrats said they made up their minds in the final days of the contest, well below the share of Republicans deciding late.

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It also appears that independents have tended to vote Republican, which makes sense. It is more of a horse race than the Democratic side where Sanders has for some time been predicted to win handily.

NBC News: New Hampshire Exit Poll Results: Independent Voter Participation.

Early exit poll results show that 42 percent of Republican primary voters in this year’s race consider themselves to be political independents, and a similar 39 percent of voters in the Democratic primary think of themselves as independents.

In 2008, the last time both parties had an open nomination contest, slightly more voters in the Democratic primary (44 percent) identified themselves as independents than did voters in the Republican primary (37 percent).

In 2000, the share of independents in each primary was fairly comparable, just like this year — 40 percent in the Democratic primary and 41 percent in the Republican race.

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The LA Times has a different take: The independent, all-knowing New Hampshire voter and other election myths.

While voters in other states are accustomed to receiving a certain level of puffery, the New Hampshire voter is put on a pedestal that would make a Nobel laureate jealous….

“While there is a kernel of truth to many aspects of this caricature, it is primarily a myth,” write David Moore and Andrew E. Smith, a pair of University of New Hampshire professors who may not be invited to many more faculty teas.

Moore, a former senior editor of Gallup Poll and founder of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, and Smith, a pollster who directs the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, lay out their case in a chapter of “The First Primary: New Hampshire’s Outsize Role in Presidential Politics,” released late last year, just in time to take all the joy from the primary season.

Their biggest beef is with the so-called independence of the New Hampshire voter. Though about 44% of the state’s residents are registered “undeclared,” only 15% actually call themselves independent in polls. They blame journalists for confusing the term “independent” with “undeclared,” a status many voters take either to avoid being identified publicly as a partisan or so they can vote in whichever party’s primary is most competitive.

But these undeclared voters may not have the impact they are credited with because they tend to show up at the polls less often than registered partisans.

The idea that independent voters can swing a primary election is also overstated, the authors conclude. Exit polls consistently show that candidates never win the top spot in their primaries without garnering the most support from registered members of their own parties.

And there is little evidence supporting the theory that undeclared voters use the open primary system to cause mischief by supporting a dolt in the party they most dislike.

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Mediaite has suggestions for live-streamng the results: How to Watch the New Hampshire Primary Results Live Stream Online.

I guess I’ll watch MSNBC unless it gets too unbearable. How do you plan to follow the results?

Again, use the comment thread to discuss the NH primary or any other topic that interests you. Frankly, I’ll be glad when we move on to Nevada and South Carolina.

Have fun!

Live Blog: South Carolina Republican Primary

Posted: January 21, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Republican presidential politics, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , | 70 Comments

Here we go folks! It looks like Mitt Romney is about to get an a$$ whipping. Newt Gingrich’s ego is going to fill the whole room tonight. I don’t think I can face listening to his speech. I still say Romney is going to be the nominee, but I’m glad things are getting a little more interesting.

The South Carolina polls close at 7PM, so in just a short time, we’ll start getting exit poll results. Judging by the talking heads on MSNBC, I’d say Newt is going to win pretty big. But we’ll know soon.

Here are a few recent headlines to hold you till we start getting results.

Buzzfeed: BYU Students Bus In To South Carolina To Rally For Romney

Politico: South Carolina Republican primary: 5 things to watch

CBS News: South Carolina primary exit polls: 2/3rds say debates mattered

Fox News: Gingrich, Romney close South Carolina fight with taunts

Washington Post: How Newt Gingrich’s past marriages may be helping him in SC

What are you hearing? Let us know in the comments!

Just Cast my Puma Vote!

Posted: November 4, 2008 | Author: | Filed under: John McCain, New Orleans, No Obama, PUMA | Tags: , , , , , | 5 Comments

Those of you that know me, know I live in the ninth ward in New Orleans. I live in the inner city and we have the usual inner city problems including gang violence, a lot of drug-related crimes, and not enough money to rebuild our infrastructure and schools just for regular wear and tear. Let’s not even go  into the Hurricane Katrina wear and tear. My neighborhood is close to the river, so when the city filled up, we stayed high and dry.  However, they still haven’t rebuilt our police station.   We also don’t have banks or grocery stores any more.  That’s the upper ninth.  The lower ninth has less, if that’s possible.

I vote in the local fire house.  It was built in the 1920s and the old stables that used to house the horses that pulled the street car named desire and the fire carriages stand silently next to it.  There are two precincts that vote in this building.  I see the same little southern church ladies each time I vote.  The know me because I vote in every election–even the odd ones with just a charter change or replacement for the latest politician caught up and drug off to jail.  That’s the thing that makes me most sad about where I live at the moment. 

 My state senator just resigned for laundering money.  Two school board members and a popular city councilman at large are sitting in jail for bribery.  The entire country knows about Congressman Dollar Bill Jefferson.  He looks like he’ll be re-elected pretty much along straight racial lines.  Black folk seem to be mighty forgiving down here. It seems they’ll take any black face over a Hispanic, white or other face no matter what the circumstances.  The mistrust of white hegemony makes me feel like the Jim Crow Laws disappeared just yesterday. Black politicians get a wide berth. I’ve learned that lesson over and over down here.  In fact, our Mayor Ray Nagin lives more in Dallas than he does here. He comes in late on Monday and is out of here by Thursday night.  That says something about the living conditions in your city when your own mayor won’t live in it full time.  I have to say that I voted for him the first time, but I didn’t make that mistake again.  We call him Mayor Na-GONE for a very good reason.  I also think that he’ll eventually run for the Jefferson seat once the federal court finally throws the book at Ol’ Dollar bill.  My guess is he’ll be just as worthless of a congressman as he was as a mayor until they wind up having to redraw the state of Louisiana to eliminate one congressional district.  Then it might be another ball game. 

Until then, we’ll suffer because very few of our leaders actually care about the city or the state it is in.  They care about their political career and ability to live large.  We’ll also suffer because a lot of the electorate thinks the only qualification one needs here to be effective is the right demographic.  It has got me questioning the nature of racism these days.  I think it’s all about who is in power and abusing that power for the benefit of ‘your own’.  I now see that folks that once suffered from this can inflict it without much thought.

It makes voting disheartening when you’re actually interested in good government.  I get tired of watching one person after another get hauled off to jail.  I guess ex-Governor Edwards is getting a lot of new company.  There’s plenty of folks from the various Louisiana political machines still running for office as well as sitting in jails right now.  If you’ve never lived in a realm of political machines, there is no way you know what that does to the folks on the outs.  It’s thuggery plain and simple.

Thuggery, abusing racial identities, and machines brings me to the topic of voting in the National Election for obvious reasons. I wore my orange sweater to show my unity with Pumas voting all over our country.  I was really surprised that I didn’t have to wait in line.  There were only two suprises awaiting me.  The first one was this:  after voting election after election, the church ladies had this conversation before I entered the booth.  The one whose job it always is to clear out the previous vote, turned to the others and asked:  “Should I ask her the question?’  Since voting here has become extremely routine, this gave me a bit of a jolt.  The ladies nodded and I was asked “Democrat or Republican”?  Since there are not two seperate ballots for this election, I found this a very odd question but smiled and said “Democrat”.  I secretly smiled and thought, if you’re asking me if i voted Democrat at the top of the ticket, the answer would’ve been no.  I guess folks are still thinking we will vote along party lines.

The next thing that happened when I walked out of the fire station was also unique for me.  I was asked to fill out an exit poll form for the news agencies.  I never vote really early in the morning as a rule but I was trying to avoid lines so I got out the door the minute I’d walked the dog.  It was a simple one sheet form with the logos of nearly all the news affiliates across the top.  I was asked the usual demographic questions, age, sex, religion, income level, party affiliation, and education level.  I was also asked which issues most concerned me ( I said energy policy) and when I made my decision to vote (within the last three days).  I was asked to rank what I thought of the George Bush presidency. (Disaster wasn’t available so I had to settle for saying I was extremely dissatisfied). I said I was very worried about the future of the economy–another situation I had to rank.  There were also the candidate listing of President, Senator, and House Rep. I put McCain, Landrieu, and Moreno.  So when they are slicing and dicing the last minute voters … and they find the democrats for McCain in the exit polls, you will find me in that number.  I hope you find me representin’ in the ninth ward for a lot of you out there.