Pennsylvania results thread: Clinton prevails; Childers 400 votes from stunning pick-up

12:45am: With 98% reporting, Clinton's lead is back down under 10% -- at 9.4% to be exact. Most of the remaining precincts look to be in Chester County in which Obama is ahead, so it does not look like Clinton crossed 10%. However, her win clearly falls within the "credible victory" category I outlined this afternoon -- though it is certainly not enough to change the fundamentals of the race. Clinton had the potential to score a much larger victory, and she reach the level she needed to truly change the discussion. As for delegates, Clinton failed to meaningfully dent into Obama's margin, and this was by far the largest state left, ensuring that the primaries will end with Obama holding on to a very large lead among pledged delegates.

Yet, how can a candidate who just won such a large victory in a crucial state even think of dropping out? Clinton has to be happy with today's narrative since she won based on her strength in rural areas and blue-collar voters. She broke 70% in many counties in Western Pennsylvania (79% in Fayette County). And in the all-important issue of money, it looks like Clinton will be able to generate money out of tonight's victory. Her campaign claims that she had raised $2,5 million from the polls closing as of 11:30pm! More on all of this tomorrow. And also on MS-01, where the last county got Childers even closer to 50% -- about 400 votes short. But this race is on to May 13th.

11:20pm: Clinton is holding firm to her double-digit lead with 88% reporting. In short, the results today are remarkably similar to those of Ohio, with most numbers internal numbers today very similar to those we saw on March 4th. Most things have remained stable in the past 6 weeks: Obama moved numbers very little despite massively outspending Clinton, and Clinton did not move upward among blue-collar voters despite her argument that Wright and bittergate hurt Obama in that group.

10:50pm: The AP has called a runoff in MS-01. With only 1 precinct remaining, Democrats just missed a pick-up in a conservative Southern district. Childers has 49% of the votes versus 46% for Davis but he remains only about 470 votes from the 50% threshold! This will certainly get Childers and the DCCC very frustrated, but it also guarantees that there will be a lot of spending in this race in the weeks ahead.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama has taken the stage in Indiana, already looking ahead to the now crucial contest of May 6th. He tried to put Pennsylvania behind him, using a tactic Clinton employed in late February when she gave her speeches on nights of defeat from the upcoming state. After congratulating Clinton for her victory (something she did not always do), Obamalaunched into a long charge against John McCain. He then moved on to his attacks against Clinton, drawing many contrasts without mentioning his opponent's name; he called to reject a party that uses the fear of terrorism to win elections (a clear reference to Clinton's 3am and bin Laden ads), tests its message in polls and relies on divisiveness. Meanwhile, Clinton has progressed to a 10% lead with 79% reporting.

10:40pm: In MS-01, Childers is now ahead by 500 votes... but both candidates are now far away from 50%. Results can be found here. The only outstanding county right now is Clay county, which Kerry won with 52% -- so it is very likely that Childers will stay ahead but it is very unlikely that he gets above 50%.

In the Democratic primary, meanwhile, 76% of the votes are in and whether Clinton can inch to a 10% victory will determine much of the coverage of the race in the days ahead. As I explained this afternoon, she needed a double-digits victory, or at least a high single-digit lead to have what I called a "credible victory." But she has certainly not reached the level she would need to change the fundamentals of the race.

10:20pm: Speaking in Philadelphia, Clinton vows to press on, emphasizing that, after a long campaign in which both candidates criss-crossed the state, Pennsylvanians chose her . "The American people don't quit, and they deserve a President who doesn't quit either," she said. She also insisted on the need for people to go to her website and donate... Her campaign is in dire need of money, though they are reporting that they have raised half a million dollar tonight already. With 68% reporting, Clinton is still in single-digits. Both Philadelphia and Pittsburgh have almost finished reporting.

Meanwhile, exit polls have been updated. Among notable changes: Clinton won big among women (57%) but the surprise is among male voters: Obama only held on to a 4% lead. Helping Clinton, of course, is the fact that 59% of voters are women. Clinton is now ahead 62% to 38% among white voters and broke into double-digits among African-Americans (not that that is a strong showing at all); she is winning big among Catholics (69%) but she is also ahead among Protestants, contrary to what some polls were finding. Clinton wins union households with 59% and voters with no college degree voted for her with 58%; Obama underperformed among voters with a college degree (51%). And in a very important measure, Clinton is found to have won the white vote 56% to 44% -- that is still less than her margin in Ohio, an argument Obama will use when talking to superdelegates.

10:10pm: With 92% of precincts is reporting, it looks like the MS-01 is heading for a runoff with Davis leading Childers by 400 votes, 48% to 47%. More proof that Childers is benefiting from strong turnout from Democratic voters: In Itawamba County, which voted for Bush overwhelmingly in 2004, the Democrats won with 59% today. There are plenty of similar examples.

Some interesting notes on the presidential race: Ben Smith finds that, among Republicans who went to vote in the meaningless GOP primary today, ie. the base of the base of the GOP, only 73% say they will vote for McCain in the general election suggesting that McCain still has some work to do among conservatives. Many of those could be Ron Paul supporters, as the Texas representative is coming in with 16% right now, ahead of Huckabee.

10pm: Quite a suspense in MS-01; with 83% of precincts reporting Davis is now at 49%, barely under the 50% threshold and 1,100 votes ahead of Childers. 4 counties have significant number of votes to count; I just looked back at the 2004 elections and one of these counties voted for Kerry, so Childers will score big there. Of the three others, one voted for Bush at the level of the rest of the district (61%) and two are more Republican than the district at large. On paper this favors Davis but don't forget Childers is significantly overperforming the district's partisan make-up.

In Pennsylvania, half of the precincts are now reporting and Clinton is ahead by 8% still; Pittsburgh and Philadelphia are now reporting at the same level, way ahead of the rest of the state. That suggest that most of the outstanding precincts are from non-urban areas, which should favor Clinton. A CNN commentator is suggesting that a Clinton nomination would make many voters flee the party -- though more Clinton supporters in Pennsylvania are saying they would vote for McCain if Obama is the nominee than Obama supporters.

9:50pm: Davis is now ahead 51% to 45% with 71% of precincts reporting. Davis's stronghold, DeSoto County, is now entirely in; Davis won there with 81% (8000 votes), which is 400% of his total margin. There is thus the potential for Childers to hold the Republican under 50%.

In Pennsylvania, Clinton is ahead by 8% with 45% of precincts reporting. Obama is performing better in Philadelphia (61% to 39%) but 72% of the city's precincts are already reporting. Clinton is swamping Obama outside of Philadelphia, posting very strong numbers in most of the counties heavy with blue-collar voters, with way above 66% in many counties. It is too early to talk about delegates, but this type of margin will enable Clinton to get strong results in many even-delegate districts.

9:25pm: Clinton's margin of victory is still unclear -- Clinton is leading by 6% with 15% of precincts reporting. It is too early for the Clinton campaign to be triumphant -- though there are indications that her lead might grow significantly because of the simple fact that 41% of Philadelphia is reporting. PA has been called for Clinton, but the race's dynamic going out of this contest is not yet determined.

In Mississippi, there has been a change as counties in which Davis is strong just reported. He is now ahead 50% to 46% with 46% of precincts reporting. If Davis wins tonight, the DCCC will regret not having met the NRCC's spending and waited for the May 13th runoff.

9:10pm: The danger for Obama is that the storyline is that Clinton's win is due to blue collar voters. With 10% reporting, Clinton is ahead by double-digits and Philadelphia (Obama's stronghold) is reporting 28% while Pittsburgh (where Clinton is strong) has not reported at all.
In Mississippi, with 25% reporting, Childers is ahead 53% to 43% -- hanging on above 50%.

9pm: AP calls Pennsylvania primary for Hillary Clinton.
It looks like Clinton's actual winning margins are bigger than those in the exit polls -- which also suggests that the numbers among key groups like white men and blue-collar voters will likely change to suggest larger wins by Clinton. Other good news for Clinton: I said that her winning margin among white men was cut since Ohio, but it looks like it has increased among other key groups like Catholics or union households; this will be used to push the argument of Obama's weakening. With 25% reporting in Philadelphia, Obama is only getting 55% -- a decent margin, but much less than what he would need.

8:45pm: Raw votes are starting to come in, and with 3% of precincts reporting Clinton is ahead 55% to 45%. This includes 11% of Philadelphia -- in which the two candidates are tied right now! Exit polls suggest Obama got a huge victory in Philadelphia, so this implies the most favorable neighborhoods have not reported yet at all (or so Obama should hope).

In Mississippi, there are some very important numbers: With 7% reporting, the Democrat, Childers, is leading 58% to 37% against Davis. It is unclear where those votes are coming from, so things can obviously get much tighter, but the truly significant result for now is that the other candidates are getting 2% at most. This is a surprise considering that the ballot was non-partisan and that the primaries had been very nasty. This means that the odds of a candidate crossing 50% is much higher than previously thought -- we might have a winner tonight.

8:25pm: The all important white male vote will be scrutinized very closely in the coming days, and the exit polls as they stand right now are not bringing her good news: She won the white men vote 53% to 46% (she won the white female vote 64% to 36%); in Ohio, she had won among white men by 19%. One of Clinton's main hopes was to claim that Wright and bitter-gate weakened Obama among white voters; it's going to be hard for her to argue that Obama has slipped dramatically enough to endanger his general election position if these numbers are confirmed in later updates to exit polls. However, Clinton won Catholics with 68% -- another group that we were looking for closely.

8pm: Polls are now closed in both Pennsylvania's primary and MS-01. As expected, there is no call in the Democratic contest; this does not mean that the race is going to end up close. It took a while for Ohio to be called and Clinton won by double-digits. Wolf Blitzer claims that "If Clinton wins tonight she will of course go on," an interesting expectation setting with which the Obama campaign would beg to differ. By the way, Clinton is in Philadelphia, Obama is in Indiana.

The full exit poll just posted on CNN's website shows Clinton narrowly ahead by 4-5%. This now looks to be the late wave of exit polls -- which tend to be much less skewed than the second wave. Among interesting numbers: 14% of voters changed their registration to Democratic since January, and 60% of them favored Obama (So much for those who criticize Clinton for riding the Rush Limbaugh Operation Chaos wave). Clinton leads by 14% among voters with no college degree; Obama leads by 8% among voters with a college degree. These numbers will be refined through the evening.

7pm: In Pennsylvania, a group sought to keep the polls open in Philadelphia until 10pm but the motion was denied, confirming that the polls will close (and results will start tricking in) at 8pm. In Mississippi, I reported that polls had closed but, as a commenter correctly points out, they close at 7pmCT -- so not for another hour.

Original post: The polls close at 7pm in Mississippi and at 8pm in Pennsylvania. Most of the suspense, of course, is in the latter. The first exit polls are starting to leak -- and as always these numbers should be taken with a huge grain of salt since they include only part of the day. And please keep in mind that this is only the second wave of exit polls and those have often been too favorable to Obama: The ones from Ohio showed a tie on March 4th, and Obama was found to be leading in Massachusetts on February 5th (he lost both states by double-digits). In fact, Pollster.com's Blumenthal finds that 18 out of 20 second wave exit polls were too skewed to Obama's favor by an average of 7%.

That said, Fox reports that these early exits have Clinton leading 58% to 42% among gun owners, with Obama ahead 54% to 46% among voters with a college degree -- perhaps a smaller margin than he would need. CNN adds that these exits are finding Clinton is ahead 55% to 45% among white men, that Obama getting as massive a victory among black voters as ever (92-8) and that those who have decided in the past week heavily broke for Clinton. As for full results, there are being leaked indirectly, they don't agree with each other and thus don't look reliable. The National Review (which often gets correct exit polls first) is reporting that exit polls have Obama narrowly ahead. Drudge is showing a narrow Clinton lead but Marc Ambinder notes those are the first wave of exit polls -- not even the second.

For now, you can read my guidelines of what to expect tonight here.