| Most polls close in a few minutes, at 8pm eastern. Here is something from the exit poll that almost certainly confirms a Romney victory:
Michigan has open primaries and no registration by party, so voters choose on primary day which partisan contest to vote in. In 2000 with no Democratic race but for an eventual blowout in caucuses three weeks later, many Democrats voted in the Republican primary -- totaling 17 percent of that electorate, more than in any other GOP primary exit poll since at least 1992.
On Tuesday there were both Democratic and Republican primaries and though ballot maneuvering left the Democratic side in essence non-competitive, apparently it kept some Democrats from migrating to the Republican contest -- where they made up fewer than one in 10 voters. In 2000, Republicans made up only 48 percent of the GOP primary electorate; Tuesday they were two-thirds of it. A quarter of Republican primary voters Tuesday called themselves independent, down from 35 percent eight years ago.
With Republicans making up two-thirds of the electorate, and with largely momentum proof absentee votes making up nearly half of the electorate, a Romney victory seems almost guaranteed. Also, Drudge claims the exit polls show Romney 34%, McCain 29%, and Huckabee 16%. We won't know if that is true for certain until the exit polls are posted at 9pm. Still, it sure looks like Romney won Michigan.
I'll be watching CNN, Detroit News, and Detroit Free Press for returns. I do not plan to regularly update results unless it looks like Romney isn't headed to a victory. Feverish, minute by minute updates will be saved for Democratic caucuses and primaries.
Update: If there is a media narrative that progressive bloggers, led by Daily Kos, won Michigan for Romney, it will be the dumbest media narrative about bloggers since Jonathan Singer managed to convince a reporter that everyone writing on MyDD was Jerome Armstrong. Exit polls will undoubtedly confirm that McCain won self-identified Democrats who voted in the primary. If this is even mentioned, it will be only out of the ongoing established media desire to pin everything negative that happens in politics on bloggers, the grassroots and other ideological, partisan types.
Update 2: Romney has it. I was looking over the country results, and while McCain is winning most of the smaller counties. Romney is building huge leads in the larger counties like Macomb, Oakland, Kent and Livingston. He is already ahead 37%-31% with 9% reporting, and I don't see any way Romney loses this now.
Update 3: Mitt Romney has won Michigan, as called by all news outlets. Way to go, Mitt! A McCain win would have virtually sealed the nomination for him. Now, denying McCain the nomination is up to Romney in Nevada, and Huckabee in South Carolina. The latter is particularly important. |
