New Hampshire: My projected winners
Nothing surprising on the GOP side. It took CNN less than 15 minutes to call McCain the winner. The only suspense in that race will be whether Paul can defeat Giuliani for fourth place.
On the Democratic side, there’s upset in the air as Clinton leads by 40%-36% with 15% counted. Key factors in this:
1) NH voters love to mislead pollsters and distinguish themselves from Iowans. Almost always.
2) The independent turnout shifted more from the Dems to the Reps this time out. That favors McCain and hurts Obama.
3) Unwilling to be cast aside by Obama’s youth movement, the elders of NH turned out in high numbers, which favors Clinton.
4) Possibly the incidents yesterday, where Hillary displayed genuine emotion and so many -even self-professed liberals - attacked her, also stimulated extra support for her. Edwards, who refused to comment then tossed in an afterthought, might have sacrificed a likely gain for appearing to be insensitive.
Based on the results, now at twenty percent, I’m projecting Hillary as the winner. Even if she falls to #2, this will easily be so close as to outdo every guess, which had Obama ahead by double digits.
Edwards is doing the same as his polling numbers so there’s no real shocker there. For the rest of the night, Clinton/Obama and Rudy/Ron are the only races to watch.
