Results thread: Clinton triumphs in KY, Obama gets Oregon and welcomes majority of pledged delegates

2:30am: Barack Obama got a large victory in Oregon. With 76% reporting, Barack Obama leads 58% to 42% -- a large victory that exceeds expectations and partly balances the trouncing he received in Kentucky. Obama got a huge margin in Portland's county, which is over-reporting. I am unable to get a sense of how favorable the last quarter of counties will be for Obama and how the margin will evolve as the last precincts report. Estimates right now give Obama an 8 pledged delegate lead in the state (Clinton had an edge of 23 in KY).
In the Senate race, Jeff Merkley managed a narrow victory against Steve Novick -- 45% to 41% at the present moment, but Novick has already conceded. He will face Gordon Smith in the fall in what is a victory for the DSCC's efforts to influence the results of a state primary. As for the last Oregon primary that we were following, Erickson managed to get the GOP primary in OH-05 despite the dramatic allegations that he had paid a woman to get an abortion and the calls from a pro-life group for him to drop out of the race.

11pm: Results start being reported in Oregon. I am not sure how the exit poll was conducted here since all the voting was conducted via mailing, but the exit poll shows that SUSA got it exactly right: the two are tied among women and Obama gets a lead solely from the male vote, which he leads by 29%. This suggests that Obama will win by double-digits. He also won the votes of voters with no college degree. He also won voters with incomes of less than $50,000. Among registered Democrats, Obama is up by single-digits. Overall, Oregon looks to be as much a repeat of Wisconsin as any state since in that Obama seems to have made inroads in Clinton constituencies.
I will not be able up to update the results for a while. Follow the results here.

10:30pm: With more than 99% of the precincts reporting in Kentucky, Obama is sitting at 30,0% while Clinton is at 65.5%. This is as big a margin as Clinton was hoping for, and it will trigger a new round of stories about Obama's weakness among blue-collar white voters. There have been many states now in which Obama has had trouble appealing to this group of voters -- just as he had trouble reaching 15% in Hispanic border counties in Texas. In relatively populous Pike County, for instance, Clinton beat Obama 91% (almost 13,000 votes) to 7% (not even 1,000 votes). The pledged delegate count is also very favorable to Clinton, as she got 37 delegates to Obama's 14.
Just as I explained this afternoon, however, these results are less interesting for the way they impact Clinton's chances (it is too late for that, and Clinton could have gotten a bigger margin without changing her chances much) than for their impact on Obama's candidacy going forward. For a presumptive nominee to not reach 30% in two states in a row does not inspire triumphant stories. But, Obama will get a good wave of stories because the important milestone he reached a few hours ago by clinching a majority of pledged delegates!

10:20pm: In his speech, speaking in Iowa in a clear sign that he was getting ready for the general election, Obama channeled some of the themes of his speech on the night of the caucuses. Obama proclaimed that "Change is coming to America" and defied the "cynics" that had counted him out. He claimed the majority in pledged delegates, clearly laying down a claim to the nomination while choosing his word carefully to not let Clinton say he is claiming victory before he has reached it: "Tonight, in the fullness of spring, with the help of those who stood up from Portland to Louisville, we have returned to Iowa with a majority of delegates elected by the American people, and you have put us within reach of the Democratic nomination."
He also kept up with a theme in recent days of heralding Clinton's historic candidacy, one he called "groundbreaking" in an appearance earlier this week. Today, he proclaimed that, "No matter how this primary ends, Senator Clinton has shattered myths and broken barriers." And he repeatedly celebrated Iowa, and how representative it is of America's problems, hopes and aspirations:

It’s what I saw all those years ago on the streets of Chicago when I worked as an organizer – that in the face of joblessness, and hopelessness, and despair, a better day is still possible if there are people willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it. That’s what I’ve seen here in Iowa. That’s what is happening in America – our journey may be long, our work will be great, but we know in our hearts we are ready for change, we are ready to come together, and in this election, we are ready to believe again. Thank you Iowa, and may God Bless America.

9:45pm: The campaigns released their primary totals today, with the Obama campaign announcing that it had raised $31 million. That's actually surprisingly close to Clinton's total of $22 million (it is unclear whether all of that is primary funds, but how many donors would be willing to donate to Clinton's general election funds?), surprising considering that Obama was already heavily favored to get the nod throughout April. The McCain campaign has raised less than both Democrats, at $18 million.

9:30pm: Obama has clinched a majority of pledged delegates. According to my calculations, he needed 14 more to reach that point, a number he reached in Kentucky alone. And this despite a massive trouncing: With 97% reporting, Obama is barely clinging to the 30% mark, distanced by Clinton's 65,5%. This means that Clinton will get a very significant delegate margin out of the state. This is a bigger margin than most polls predicted, and I was correct to assume that with Louisville out of the way Clinton's margin would only increase through the night. In the Senate race, the November match-up will oppose Bruce Lunsford to Mitch McConnell.

7:45pm: With 43% of the precincts reporting, Clinton leads 58% to 39%, and Obama is holding on to a higher than expected showing though his stronger counties (around the cities of Fayette and Louisville) have nearly finished reporting. Obama is getting less than 10% in a number of counties, with Clinton routinely above 85% in a lot of rural counties, especially in the Appalachia region in Eastern Kentucky. Note that John Edwards is not repeating the stunning 7% he got last week in WV, as he is only at 1.7% here; combined with the uncommitted vote, however, more than 3.5% of voters refused to pick between Clinton and Obama (that's actually much less than the number of GOP voters who shunned McCain, who is only getting 73% of the vote).
In the Senate primary, Bruce Lunsford is leading but by a slightly narrower margin than expected.

7:30pm: Looking at exit polls, the key constituencies are behaving as they have throughout 2008: Clinton carries women by 40% (54% among white women) and she gets 69% among voters with no college degree. She also trounces Obama among voters with a college degree, but less overwhelmingly. More surprisingly, there is no gap along income lines (as Clinton trounces Obama among lower income voters only slightly more than among higher income voters) or along religious lines. Another interesting result is the partisan breakdown: Clinton leads by 40% among registered Democrats, while the independent vote is a much narrower 45% to 40%.
As for the racial factor, it looks to have been as important as in West Virginia as 21% of voters say that race was important to them. Overall, Clinton got 72% of the white vote and Obama got 88% of the black vote. Also, 54% of voters say that Obama shares the views of Jeremiah Wright. 56% of all voters say they would not be satisfied if Obama wins the nomination.

7:15pm: Kentucky called for Hillary Clinton. Nothing surprising at 7pm, as networks quickly called the state for Clinton. Exit poll numbers, now available, suggest that Clinton will get a margin superior to 30% -- the result she was hoping for. With 27.5% reporting, Clinton is leading 57% to 39.5%; if Obama can hold on to these numbers -- and hover around the 40% mark -- he will have greatly exceeded expectations. But consider that 88% of Jefferson County, where Louisville is located, has already reported, and that Obama is narrowly ahead in that county. This is the only region where Obama could have expected strong results, and it is likely to only go downhill from here.

6:20pm: Kentucky Results have started coming in despite the fact that not all polls are closed in the state. Only 0.5% of precincts are reporting, so it is still early (Clinton is starting with a big lead, with 78% of the vote). But the exit polls are revealing of the state of mind of Kentucky voters, with about 80% of Clinton supporters say they would be dissatisfied if Obama were their nominee, and more saying they would vote for McCain than for Obama. Kentucky is among Obama's worst states in the primary as well as the general election when compared to Clinton: The latest SUSA poll of Kentucky had McCain leading Clinton by 2% and leading Obama by 37, even besting him among registered Democrats by 1 percent!

Original post: Kentucky and Oregon voters were probably hoping that their primaries would seem more momentous. Not only did Indiana and North Carolina bring an effective end to the competitive part of the race, but the primaries were overshadowed by news that Senator Ted Kennedy had been diagnosed with a brain tumor. The political world -- Republicans and Democrats -- hurried to offer their tribute to one of the most famous American politicians, with Senator Byrd gaining the most headlines for his teary speech on the floor of the Senate.

We will likely have much more to say about Kennedy's condition and the implications of this news for the Massachusetts political scene, but for now it is Kentucky and Oregon's turn to shine. Results start trickling in at 6pm ET from Kentucky, with all polls closing at 7pm. In Oregon, results will start being released at 11pm. So this will be a long stretched out night election night.

This will be only the second election night that I will not be constantly liveblogging through the night (the first was Mississippi on March 11th), nor will I be able to watch Obama's Iowa speech live; but I will certainly offer very regular updates. For now, you can look at my guidelines for tonight's results -- both at the presidential and gubernatorial level.