The push in Virginia for mandatory vaginal ultrasounds before an abortion was met with national outrage that soon saw the measure modified. This week a representative in Alabama introduced a similar measure before also walking things back under pressure.
But by setting the bar to the extreme, and then drawing back, are the proponents of these measures actually changing the conversation in their favor? Our Jillian Rayfield reports.
The exit polls tell a familiar story out of Michigan. Rick Santorum won blue collar and middle class voters. Romney, meanwhile, won big among more affluent voters and crushed it among voters making over 200k a year.
The latest exit polls from Michigan have a 3 point margin for Romney. And that’s about the results are showing at the moment.
It’s only a bit larger lead than Santorum had for much of the evening. But Mitt Romney’s starting to open up a lead in Michigan. (Live Results here) At the moment, we have 18% of the precincts in. Romney has just less than a 4 point lead. That’s about 8,000 votes.
As we come up on 9 PM on the east coast it’s looking clear we’re in for a long night in Michigan. We’re near 10% of precincts reporting and Rick Santorum has been holding a very small lead pretty much all night. (Live results here.) The exit polls point to a 3 point Romney advantage. But that’s not enough to make any bets on for an exit poll.
The last precincts close in Michigan at 9PM, as do the polls in Arizona (live results here.)
When the results start coming in in Michigan, we’ll have them right here on our county by county results page. Right here.
For the very latest updates of everything that goes down tonight, check out TPMLiveWire.
We’ve got the audio of another robocall in Michigan that went out today and appears to be from the Santorum camp, urging Dems to cross over and vote against Mitt.
Olympia Snowe’s surprise decision not to seek re-election this year caught Maine and Washington completely off guard. The parties are scrambling tonight to line up viable candidates for the seat, with the filing deadline barely two weeks away.
President Obama: “These are the folks who said if we went forward with our plan to rescue Detroit, ‘you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye.’ Now they’re saying they were right all along!”
Rick Santorum, January 29, 2012: “If you’re a Democrat and you want to be a Democrat, then vote in the Democratic primary, not the Republican. If you want to vote in the Republican Party then become one.”