And the Winner Is...

Only 1 minute after the polls closed, MSNBC, NBC, CBS have called it for Obama. CNN hasn't yet.

What matters will be the actual breakdown of votes, especially for second place. But results after 1 minute? Seriously?

CNN has now called it for Obama and is now going through every demographic group broken down by gender and race to see who they voted for. There wasn't a gender gap among black voters who went to Obama. Among white voters, men went for Edwards and women for Clinton. As far as I can tell, Obama did reasonably well among white voters.

The infamous exit polls results.

African-Americans

Obama 81%
Clinton 17%
Edwards 1%

African-American Women

Obama 82%
Clinton 17%
Edwards 0%

Whites

Edwards 39%
Clinton 36%
Obama 24%

Just in, Obama will give his victory speak at 9pm and I'm sure it will be carried live on cable news.

And for those that are wondering, I would be commenting on Fox News coverage, but students living on-campus have not had access to Fox News for over a month. As much as I don't like Fox News or "Faux News" as I like to call them, it is ridiculous that Penn Video Network has not fixed the problem.

8:30pm Update via Dailykos,

With 55% of the vote in, Obama now has garnered more votes than John McCain did in the Republican primary. Additionally, Clinton has received more votes than Thompson (3rd place), and Edwards has received more votes than Ron Paul and GOP "front-runner" Giuliani.

~BT

Liveblogging South Carolina Democratic Primary

Let the fun begin. I am watching MSNBC and checking CNN on television and Brave New Films & Young Turks' coverage online.

At 6:02, we should now have exit polls. The results? coming soon...

Matt Stoller, who is on the ground in South Carolina, offers his closing thoughts:

The frame I want to offer is rooted in talking to voters. The primary questions on their mind seems to be who can win the White House, and who can fix what Bush did to the country. It is not which Democratic surrogate said what about which person, and race and gender in the negative sense are annoying everyone, unless it's framed as a positive, in which case all sides are proud that a black man and a woman are running. There is worry about a black man winning the Presidency, and Clinton being polarizing, but it's rooted in electability. These are Democratic partisans.

With Obama up around 12% in polls leading into today, the more exciting question is how well did Edwards do? Can he get past Clinton and take second? Edwards has outspent both Clinton and Obama and we can't ignore the appeal of his economic message.

First exit polls to hit the wire:

6:15	AP exit polls: 75% say country is ready to elect a black President, and the same percentage said the same about a woman.

6:15	AP exit polls: Roughly 80% of Dem voters would be satisfied if Clinton or Obama won the nomination

more to come...

~BT