Clinton Gets Much-Needed Wins

Last night, Hillary Clinton's wins in the Ohio, Texas, and Rhode Island primaries proved once again that this primary season is unpredictable. Here's the numbers.

Ohio:
Clinton 54%
Obama 44%

Texas Primary:
Clinton 51%
Obama 47%

Texas Caucus (41%):
Obama 56%
Clinton 44%

Vermont:
Obama 59%
Clinton 39%

Rhode Island:
Clinton 58%
Obama 40%

Clinton pulled off a surprisingly large margin of victory in Ohio, winning in every congressional district except those that included the cities of Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati.

One of the most significant things that I saw last night were the exit polls out of Ohio. She reclaimed her lead among white women, men, and seniors which were her key constituent groups before Barack Obama's winning spree in February.

Since Ohio is very similar demographically to Pennsylvania--the next big prize, which votes on April 22nd--except that Pennsylvania is older, whiter, and more Democratic. That bodes well for Clinton, especially since she has the support of the state's governor, Ed Rendell.

The Texas primary was hotly contested all the way to the end, and it turned out to pretty much be a tie. Clinton edged out Obama slightly, but it was pretty even across the board.

As expected, Obama carried blacks heavily and Latinos went strongly for Clinton. The white vote was evenly split.

If you look at a map of Texas's congressional districts, Clinton looks like she won overwhelmingly. She carried the north, west, and south part of the state heavily. But Obama won in the places where the majority of the people are, around Houston and Dallas. And that's where most of the delegates are.

Because of voting irregularities, the Texas caucus results are coming in very slowly, but it looks like Obama will win. So in reality, Obama might walk away from Texas with more delegates even though Clinton was proclaimed the winner.

Rhode Island and Vermont effectively canceled each other out with their margins. Clinton easily carried Rhode Island and Obama easily took Vermont.

So basically, the delegate count will remain about the same after the Texas caucus delegates are tallied up. But the real story is that Clinton once again needed to deliver, and she did. Obviously her new strategy of flaunting her ability to handle a crisis--as seen in her "red phone" ad--really materialized.

But now that Obama's momentum has come to an abrupt halt, expect him to fight back ferociously against Clinton. Part of the reason he did not win in Ohio and Texas was that she kept him on the defensive all week about Nafta and Rezko.

He should hit back hard and try to get her on the defensive. His camp obviously needs a new strategy going forward. The pressure's still on Clinton and the math is still on Obama's side, but he needs to at least make it close in Pennsylvania to keep her at arm's length in the delegate total. And he's got seven whole weeks to try and figure that out.