McCain Wins Illinois, New Jersey, Connecticut Primaries With Moderates

Early returns suggest Arizona Senator John McCain has picked up some early victories with the help of moderates at the same time that the Democratic Presidential nomination race is showing some voting along racial lines.

News reports say primaries have been called in Illinois, New Jersey, Connecticut so far in favor of McCain. He’s getting moderates votes but is clearly being rejected by many conservatives. The AP:

John McCain gained a solid victory Tuesday in the New Jersey Republican primary with the strong backing of moderates and voters worried about the economy, but still facing resistance among conservatives and those unhappy with his stance on illegal immigration.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama struggled for Democratic votes in a contest that would give the nation its first woman or first black presidential nominee. White women favored Clinton, while blacks overwhelming chose Obama, according to early results of an exit poll conducted for The Associated Press and the television networks.

Although moderates preferred McCain by a 5-to-1 margin over Mitt Romney, they split the votes of conservatives, a group that accounted for half the GOP turnout, the poll found.

At this (early) writing, the Drudge Report has this list up on its front page:

AL: OBAMA
AR: CLINTON
DE: OBAMA
GA: OBAMA
IL: OBAMA
MA: CLINTON
NY: CLINTON
NJ: CLINTON
OK: CLINTON
TN: CLINTON

AR: HUCKABEE
CT: MCCAIN
DE: MCCAIN
IL: MCCAIN
MA: ROMNEY
NJ: MCCAIN
NY: MCCAIN
WV: HUCKABEE

These are NOT states that have been officially called.

We’ll have more results here,
as actual states are called for the candidates. We are not going to run many exit polls here, but if you want to see two excellent examples of them go HERE (on the left) and HERE (on the right).

If you have to draw an early (and probably quite reckless) conclusion from the early news stories that are emerging, McCain is likely to emerge the GOP front-runner who still faces an angry conservative rebellion. If he’s squelched, the GOP will lose support from many moderates most likely for many years to come. If he gets the nomination, he has to figure out a way to win over his party’s right.

And on the Democratic side, unless one of the candidates winds up scoring a huge blow-out with a whopping margin in delegates, Super Tuesday could end with both sides being more or less where they started…with the race going all the way to the convention, unless one of them drops out. And it could then eventually come down to a good, old-fashioned, highly-divisive credentials fight over Florida and Michigan to determine the nomination.

There is also the prospect that, come November, both parties will be parties which have suffered great divisions that have not totally healed.

The evening is still young…but there is no massive winner…so far.

If there is — on either side — the media coverage and shift in press narrative will make it even more difficult for the challenger(s) to derail the nomination (in either party).