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News from the Votemaster

While there has been a lot of talk about Barack Obama's troubles connecting with white working-class voters, there has been less talk about his incredible popularity among black voters. A story in the NY Times says that if Obama is Democratic nominee, in November we will see the largest turnout of black voters in the history of the United States. That turnout could cause a lot of trouble for Republicans in states like Virginia, North Carolina, and other southern states. Combine that with a massive turnout among young voters and Democrats may suddenly be competitive in places where they haven't been competitive in years.

But even with white voters, the full story may be more complicated than it first appears. The NY Times has a nice map of Appalachia and it appears Obama's troubles with white working-class voters seem to be mostly in this economically depressed region. He did reasonably well with white working-class voters in Virginia, Wisconsin, and other states.

The New Republic has a very good post mortem on Hillary Clinton's campaign. She did too many things wrong, including trying to position herself as inevitable, hire people who were less than helpful (Mark Penn, Patti Solis Doyle), ignore caucuses and red states, not realize how powerful a phenomen Barack Obama was, and much more. While it may not be formally over, barring a major gaffe by Obama at this point, it is hard to see how she can win (see the delegate counts below).

Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) had a seizure yesterday and is undergoing tests at Mass General Hospital in Boston. Kennedy is not up for reelection this year and is not playing any formal role in any campaign, but as the senior Kennedy is still a Democratic icon. He was an early endorser of Barack Obama, to some extent making the presidential race the Kennedy dynasty vs. the Clinton dynasty.

No primary or general election polls today but we do have another Alaska Senate poll. Rasmussen confirms the earlier result that Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) has a problem. Anchorage mayor, Mark Begich (D) is ahead of 47% to 45%. While this is a statistical tie, it is the second straight poll showing that the incumbent is not a shoo-in, as incumbents usually are. Alaska is going to be a battleground for both the Senate and the House.

The polling results for all primaries and caucuses are available as a Web page and in .csv format.

The average of the seven news sources given below puts Barack Obama ahead of Hillary Clinton 1897 to 1715 with 440 delegates yet to go. When Kentucky and Oregon vote Tuesday, another 103 pledged delegates will be chosen, reducing the 440 to 337. It is widely expected that Kentucky will go to Clinton and Oregon to Obama, leaving his current lead of about 182 delegates unchanged. To catch up, Clinton will need 260 of the 337 delegates or 77%. That seems very unlikely at this point, but it ain't over 'til it's over.

Delegates

Needed to win: 2026

Here is another source for delegate totals.

WWW www.electoral-vote.com