Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who now says she regrets her vote last week for the Blunt amendment, tells TPM: “I think [these incidents] are just adding to this sense that women’s health rights are being attacked — that in 2012 we’re having a conversation about whether or not contraception should be allowed. … I think most thought that we were done with those discussions decades ago.”
It won’t be anywhere near enough to change the calculus. But what we will see tonight is a series of big surges for Newt Gingrich for all people. For instance, check out this chart of Tennessee … Read More
It’s pretty pathetic that Newt was down to desperately needing to win his home state. But he won it. And by a pretty big margin.
While we’re waiting for more results, here’s another detail that may have escaped your attention. There’s no question that Scott Brown has opened up a substantial lead over Elizabeth Warren, and just as the national trend has been moving in the Dems’ direction. Check at these numbers after the jump … Read More
The latest round of exit polls just came out of Ohio and they now show Romney with just a one point advantage. So this could get interesting.
8:02 PM: To give you some context here, the first exits out this afternoon showed Mitt +4. That helped shape some of the coverage as well. The latest exits were Mitt +1. That’s a lot better for Mitt than -1. But that means that Santorum is still in it in Ohio and the numbers I’m seeing show him (Santorum) doing really well in Tennessee.
8:38 PM: Santorum wins Tennessee.
So far, Rick Santorum has scored a big win in Tennessee and at least a win (according to projections just coming in from the nets) in Oklahoma. The current numbers show a close race in Ohio. But the most recent exit poll from about an hour ago shows Romney winning by a single percentage point in Ohio. That means Romney probably wins there, more likely than not.
If he does it’s not a great night because he lost in Oklahoma, Tennessee and Georgia. But if he loses Ohio, which does not look likely but definitely still possible, it’s a catastrophic night for Mitt.
For the moment, Santorum has a 2 point lead over Romney in Ohio. That’s with 18% of precincts reporting.
Mitt Romney’s about to speak tonight. Very curious to hear what he says since so far tonight he’s yet to win a major contested primary. My hunch is he just ignores the returns and gives the general election speech.
As of this moment, we have 37% of the precincts reporting. And Santorum is up by 3.2%. That’s just shy 17,000 votes. But what’s left in the remaining 63% of precincts. The key is that what’s to come is almost certainly better for Mitt than what we’ve seen so far, mainly becomes a lot of Republican-leaning suburbs are lagging behind the vote count. But is it enough? Nate Silver seems to think it may not be and that Santorum — based on all the data before us right now — is the slight favorite. That sounds right to me, especially because Nate seems to think so too.