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Hilary Clinton won the Democratic Nevada primaries
with 50 percent, and John McCain won the
Republican South Carolina primaries with 33 percent.
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Another win for Clinton and McCain
Tracy Harriger | 1/24/08 | World News
enators Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain of New York and Arizona both picked up victories in the presidential primary races this weekend. Hilary scooped up 50 percent of the Nevada votes while McCain came out of the South Carolina election carrying 33 percent of the Republican votes.
Mitt Romney also won an overwhelming majority of the Republican vote in Nevada – over 50 percent. For quite some time the opinion polls predicted Romney would win this state with little or no contest.
Candidates concentrated heavily on appealing to voters’ desire for change on the home front, especially where the economy is concerned. Republicans were also concerned about immigration while Democrats focused more on health care and the war in Iraq.
The race for South Carolina was a close one with McCain just barely edging out competitor Mike Huckabee by 3 percent. The former now says he’s more confident of victory in the Florida election coming up next week and other primaries that will follow on February 5.
Interviews with voters revealed that the Republican vote was fairly evenly split between McCain and Huckabee, but that McCain picked up a good majority of the votes from those persons registered as Independents.
In Nevada, Democrats Clinton and Barack Obama were also in very close competition. The race ended with 50% of the votes going to Clinton and 45 percent to Obama. The next closest competitor, John Edwards, only managed to pick up 4 percent of the Democratic vote.
Though Obama did not win the Nevada caucuses, he did gain more electoral votes in Nevada, 13 compared to Clinton’s 12. He graciously accepted his defeat when he issued a statement that said he had organized an “honest, uplifting campaign…that appealed to the people’s hopes instead of their fears” (AP).
Obama had hoped to win the Nevada primary through some 60,000 voters in the culinary union, but turnout was much lighter than expected with many unions set up along the Las Vegas Strip proclaiming “I support my union. I support Hilary.” (AP).
As the most feasible black candidate in American history, Obama will now concentrate on his campaign in South Carolina, hoping that the large population of African Americans will push him over the top in both the popular and electorate vote.
Because South Carolina has been known to pick the presidential nominees of each party, South Carolina will be an important state for Obama to win. It is for this same reason that McCain now has high hopes for his future campaigns.
To learn more about the candidates visit:
http://www.johnmccain.com/
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/
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