With the early returns rolling in for Super-Tuesday, the race for the White House is reaching full steam.

In the Caucuses in West VA, Huckabee racked up 18 delegates (the balance will be awarded in the May Primary) and won his home state of Arkansas and in Alabama, which apportion their delegates 34 and 48 delegates respectively.

McCain posted wins in the winner-take-all states of New Jersey (52), Delaware (18) and Connecticut (30) and leads in Illinois, which apportions its 70 GOP delegates. McCain is also likely to win in NY (101) and Arizona (53).

Romney won his home state of MA, which apportions its 43 delegates; and is likely to win in Utah, CO, and North Dakota (apportioning 36, 46 and 26 delegates respectively).

Returns from winner-take-all states MT, MO and apportioned states CA, OK, GA, MN, TN and AK will continue to roll in (Alaska reports last for this round), so tons of delegates are still up for grabs.

The largest state in the Union has recieved unprecidented attention from both parties, that alone should revive the… Read More

It was awfully nice of Adam to go to suchlengths yesterday to spin for the newest client of Probolsky Research, but unfortunately the facts just aren’t on his side in this case.

When a candidate has to take a second on his house, and move his money in and out, and in and out of his committee just to make a show of having it, nobody is fooled into believing that he has any intention of spending it.

Plus, a good chunk of the money Neil “raised” can only be spent in the General Election, and his Cash On Hand only shows what it shows because Neil seems to have sat on his debts for quite some time, racking up almost $25,000 in debt.

In fact, upwards of 43% of Neil’s Cash On Hand might as well be Monopoly money, as it’s already owed to someone, can’t be spent in the Primary, or is already owed to a bank somewhere.

And I don’t agree with Adam that Jeff is going to need to “significantly outspend” Neil in order to win, as one wouldn’t need anything larger than a Post-It note to be able to list Neil’s accomplishments, but at this point if it were necessary, he’s already capable of doing so.

Jeff has lived in Orange County… Read More

Fox and CNN call CA for McCain some time ago. But, it’s the apportioned delegate count we’re all interested in…

McCain looks to be carrying every district in the state in the 40-50% range against Romney’s 20-30% range.

CNN election tracker at present has it McCain, 475 delegates, to Romney’s 151. But, that’s with only 11 CA delegates included for McCain. Add to that another 160+ from CA alone, and McCain is nearing the threshold numbers John Lewis indicated this morning (see post) to make this thing virtually inevitable.

Some would say it’s still early. Put a fork in it.… Read More

If your name has been submitted by the Romney for President Campaign or the McCain for President Campaign as a prospective delegate for this summer’s Republican National Convention in Minneapolis/St. Paul, you may have a long night and early morning ahead. Over the past few days, we have seen several public opinion polls attempting to gauge who will win the GOP primary here in the Golden State. Some of these surveys show Senator Mccain ahead, others show Governor Romney ahead. Others show that it is neck and neck. The reality is probably somewhere in this range – it will be a tight race. For those who are frustrated about the disparagy of some of the polling results, I would take heed in something my friend and fellow blogger Adam Probolsky (a public opinion pollster by profession) likes to say, "The results of a survey of voters is only as accurate as your ability to try and predict who is likely to actually vote." There are predictions for a record turn out by California voters today. This isn’t surprising since on both sides of the political spectrum, Golden State voters will be actually making a… Read More

Among conservatives, the leading GOP presidential choices have become a lesser-of-the-evils option at a more significant level than anytime I can previously remember, not the least of which is due to a competitive Super Tuesday, but also because both McCain and Romney have — to die hards — "questionable philosophical credentials."

Perhaps only fodder in the final day, but check out the missives from some stalwart conservatives to ensure indictments of their "non-choice" of a candidate. The first from former Assemblyman and current ED of the Council for National Policy Steve Baldwin…on Romney:

Well, we tried, but the news is out. We beltway conservatives, radio talk show hosts, conservative columnists, and other assorted "Movement" leaders have tried hard to keep this info from the grassroots but I guess we failed on this one count. We’ve known for years that Romney unilaterally instituted gay marriage in Massachusetts — which, yes, we do acknowledge is probably the single worse action by an elected official in 100 years in terms of undermining America’s Judeo… Read More

The dynamics of the race for the 71st Assembly District have changed dramatically in the last few weeks. The 71st takes in a large parts of Orange County and parts of Riverside County.

Until just a few weeks ago there were four candidates (three of whom were from OC). Now there are just two, Neil Blais a Rancho Santa Margarita councilman and Fire Authority Board Member from Orange County (a Probolsky Research client) and Corona councilman and Transportation Commissioner Jeff Miller from Riverside County. Both candidates are members of their respective county Republican Central Committees.

There has been a fair amount of back and forth regarding the two campaigns finances, so I thought I would set the record straight with some factual analysis of the race.

FACT: Neil Blais raised $124,714 in individual contributions during the latest period. That is without any loans – personal or otherwise. Jeff Miller raised $90,019

FACT: Neil Blais also loaned his campaign an additional $100,000 – like most winning GOP Assembly candidates have done in the past.

FACT: Jeff… Read More

I was pretty surprised with Bill Simon, fresh off of his close friend Rudy Giuliani’s campaign, joined the McCain campaign as a senior member of their policy team. So, the onus is now on you, Bill. Good luck.

OK, with that said, Bill Simon makes his case for why YOU should support John McCain:

Just to follow on Jon’s commentary this morning and the news of today’s Field poll…the one thathas Prop 93 losing at 46% "no" and 33% yes after being 39-39 10 days ago.

2 pieces of mail I’ve received from the "Yes" side have been prominently featuring firefighters on the front side of the mailer,They usethe same font below as the Guv’s piece that Jon mentions as Republican mailer #1. "Limit legislators terms" "Yes on 93" with firefighters pictured above. A shameful effort by 93ers to use the firefighters heroic figure status among the public for this play.

On the back it quotes a past president of the fire chiefs "Yes on 93 means the voices of firefighters on the front lines will be heard when crucial budget decisions are made in Sacramento." Whaaaat? So you’re saying they’re not heard now…and this phony term… Read More