7:07 p.m. Polls closed in Virginia just a minute ago, and MSNBC is already calling the Democratic race for Sen. Barack Obama by a substantial margin. Virginia was really the only state potentially in play for Sen. Hillary Clinton, so this early call is a blow to her campaign — though she probably isn’t surprised. Word has it Clinton already left the region to head to Texas.
The Republican race is still too close to call between Sen. John McCain and Mike Huckabee.
7:12 p.m. Exit polls are showing Obama’s win in Virginia was decisive: Black voters went 90 percent for Obama, along with a solid 48 percent of the white vote, compared to Clinton’s 52 percent among white voters. White men made the difference for Obama, as 55 percent went for him. Obama also did very well with Virginia’s under 40 population, independents, the wealthy, and those with postgraduate degrees. (info from MSNBC)
7:22 p.m.: Pat Buchanan just referred to Alexandria and Arlington as practically “Marxist Country,” much to the amusement of Chris Matthews. I think I’ll switch to CNN now.
7:27 p.m. CNN is breaking down the Republican exit polls, and it looks like extraordinary turnout among conservatives in Virginia has given a huge boost to Mike Huckabee. We wouldn’t have predicted this a couple days ago, but it looks like McCain’s so-called front runner status didn’t matter that much to Virginia voters.
7:31 p.m. DCist’s Andrew Wiseman reports from his polling place at 12th and R NW, where he just ran into Mayor Adrian Fenty. Andrew says Fenty appeared to be following electioneering laws at this polling place, and that the Mayor told him that turnout today in D.C. is larger than the number of people who voted in last year’s mayoral election. That’s actually pretty astonishing — presidential primaries have historically been some of the worst in terms of voter turnout in the District.
7:45 p.m.: Big news from Maryland: A judge has extended voting in the state until 9:30 p.m., an extra 90 minutes, due to the icy conditions across the state. D.C. polls will close at 8 p.m. as scheduled.
7:52 p.m.: DCist’s Jamie Liu informs me I should have stuck with MSNBC. Not only did Chris Matthews say that his son came down from New York “on the Chinese bus” (as opposed to the Chinatown bus), but I missed Mayor Fenty appearing with Matthews to discuss Obama’s racially-integrated appeal. Jamie says Fenty came off pretty well, although near the end he looked a little uncomfortable, possibly with the line of questions about championing causes for a particular race.
8 p.m.: Well that’s funny. Wolf Blitzer just said that none of the news organizations did any exit polling in D.C., so CNN is actually going to wait for votes to be counted here before calling. MSNBC is going ahead and calling D.C. for Obama, which hey, they’re probably right about even without exit polling. No one is calling the Republican race in the District yet. It’s Huckabeementum!
8:07 p.m. I am reliably informed that the technical term is actually “Huckaboom.” My apologies.
8:32 p.m. CNN is now projecting John McCain has won Virginia. That’s got to be a huge relief for the McCain camp. It would have been very embarrassing to lose the state to Huckabee, although the slim margin of victory is still a pretty big surprise.
9:14 p.m.: OK, so what’s the deal? It’s been well over an hour since polls closed in D.C. and we’re still seeing 0 percent of the precincts reporting on CNN and MSNBC. At least a small amount of precinct reports started coming from Virginia almost immediately.
9:30 p.m. Maryland polls have closed, and the cable news channels are calling the state for Barack Obama and for John McCain. No big surprises there. Wolf Blitzer says that the numbers are coming in “very, very slowly” from the District. We’re looking at you, DCBOEE.
9:53 p.m. Well enough with the cable news channels! They are apparently just too busy to call the DCBOEE themselves to get the raw numbers. Here’s the unofficial vote tally as of 9:28 p.m this evening straight from the elections board, with 69 of 142 precincts in the District of Columbia reporting:
Democratic Primary in D.C.:
Clinton: 24 percent (12,532 total votes)
Obama: 75 percent (40,890 total votes)
Republican Primary in D.C.:
McCain: 66 percent (1684 total votes)
Huckabee: 17 percent (418 total votes)
9:57 p.m. I should add that with those numbers, we are calling D.C. for Obama and McCain. G’night, folks!
Photo by brownpau
