Giulani Loses Florida, Clinton Wins
January 29, 2008 by Joshua Davis
Really, Florida was only important for Republicans. And to some the most important part was Giuliani, and if his eggs in the basket strategy for Florida would work. With 35% of votes in Giuliani comes in a distant third with 15% of the vote. McCain and Romney continue in struggle with few percentage points separating them.
Hilary won the Democratic contest, but only in name, as the DNC stripped Florida of all delegates. And since the Hilary camp has said “This is a race for delegates…It is not a battle for individual states.” But Hilary is trying to pull another trick, lobbying the DNC to reinstate Florida’s delegates.
This comes after potential election fraud in Nevada:
“We currently have reports of over 200 separate incidents of trouble at caucus sites, including doors being closed up to thirty minutes early, registration forms running out so people were turned away, and ID being requested and checked in a non-uniform fashion. This is in addition to the Clinton campaign’s efforts to confuse voters and call into question the at-large caucus sites which clearly had an affect on turnout at these locations. These kinds of Clinton campaign tactics were part of an entire week’s worth of false, divisive, attacks designed to mislead caucus-goers and discredit the caucus itself.”
In a manual for caucus volunteers, instructed Hilary’s people to instruct poll captains to shutdown polling places half an hour early. Her campaign had previously told potential Clinton supporters to come to the poll early.
Update 8:52
44% of precincts are reporting, and McCain appears to be gaining an edge over Romney. If McCain can can continue winning delegates he’ll provide a formidable force in 2008 if Clinton wins. By the way, currently Clinton has nearly a 2 times lead over Obama.
Update 8:55
According to exit polls Hilary won among white and Latino voters, while Obama took in 70% of the black vote, the other 29% voted for Hilary. Interestingly Hilary did best among voters who decided who to vote for today. Maybe thats due to several key endorsements in Florida, and an announcement that Hilary would visit Florida for a victory celebration.
Update 9:00
CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC have all said they can’t declare a Repuplican winner. I’m going to guess a McCain win. And if he looses, look for allegations of vote fraud in the next couple of weeks. I wouldn’t be surprised to see slick Mitt pull something like that. On the other hand are candidates scared to cheat in Florida after 2000?
Update 9:04
The New York Times says:
Well, Senator Clinton just stole the spotlight for a moment, promising at a rally in Florida to do whatever she could to seat those uninvited delegates from this state. She called their vote — which would appear overwhelming — a “vote of confidence.”
Update 9:09
Interestingly “pastor” Huckabee and Giulani are within a few percentage points. Huckabee suffered from lack of funds, one Reporter from CNN said he “Had to sit on the toilet seat of Huck’s private jet.” Giulani on the other hand spent $40 million in Florida, so there’s no money excuse for his lackluster performance.
Update 9:14
Al Jazeera is saying, “Giuliani, who staked his campaign on the Florida result, may now quit the race.” Certaintly if his money stats don’t look good for the first quarter he’ll quit, but I think he has the determination to stick it out until Super Tuesday.
Update 9:20
The numbers are holding steady in both races, with the majority of precincts reporting.
Update 9:22
The AP has declared McCain the winner in Florida, probably due to his slowly increasing numbers.
Update 9:24
Apparently some top level advisers in Rudy’s campaign have suggested he might endorse McCain in the coming weeks. Maybe Al Jazeera was right.
Update 9:30
Well even though McCain poses the largest threat to a Democratic win in ‘08, the election was a relief. Why? Because anyone is better than Giuliani. This is it for tonight from me.
Why isn’t anyone making note of the fact that Mike Gravel’s vote count magically went from 22,000 votes and 2.4% to 2800 votes and 0.3%? The New York Times and CNN reported Gravel’s percentage and votes as 22,000 and 2.4% before. Now they’re reporting it differently. Isn’t anyone concerned that something screwy may be going on here in this Florida Democratic Primary? Is anyone concerned that there may be some type of fraud here, what with these computer voting machines?
[Reply]
Elizabeth, maybe it’s fraud, but my guess is a couple of pro-worker precincts skewered the votes. In my last local election there was a divisive election about school boundary changes. It happened that the people opposed to the changes had early reporting precincts, thus giving them an early lead. Later the opponent only had 30 per cent of the vote.
[Reply]
Perhaps you misunderstand me, or maybe I just misunderstand you. Gravel’s actual vote count, the number of votes that he got, went from 22,000 votes to 2800 votes. 2800 is not a typo. 20,000 of Gravel’s actual votes disappeared, and they haven’t returned. Just wanted to make myself clear.
[Reply]
I understand what you’re saying now, and that is odd. But that certainly won’t be the first time votes disappeared in Florida.
[Reply]
…then 28,000 was potentially a typo?
Nobody would have anything to gain from taking votes away from Mike Gravel.
[Reply]
Elizabeth, do you remember the exact time and channel that 22,000 votes for Gravel was seen? Was it right at the beginning of precincts reporting?
[Reply]
I saw it on the New York Times Online Election Guide, and I believe that CNN also very briefly made mention of the fact that Gravel had 2%. That was probably about an hour, or a little less, after the polls closed that I saw that. A little while before, he had been at 4% (about 30 minutes after the polls closed), and he dropped to 2% as the voting went on. When he was at 2.4%, his vote count changed from 22,000 to 2800, and his percentage dropped to 0.3% (tied with Chris Dodd). Gravel was the only Democrat to campaign openly in Florida, so I’m a little surprised that he got so few votes.
[Reply]
As votes are counted, and precincts are reporting, the percentages of votes for a candidate out of the total percentage of votes for all candidates is subject to change. This is because not all votes have been counted, and early leads don’t mean anything.
what doesn’t happen is the number of votes for each candidate changing.
now what i’m guessing is that the NYTimes mistakenly reported 22,000 (probably accidentally adding an extra 0 at the end, meanning the real number was 2,200) and then once the next totals came, this was fixed to 2800, adding the extra votes and fixing the extra zero.
[Reply]
http://youtube.com/watch?v=L3gQfz8GC0o
[Reply]