Election primaries are close in swing states
Ron Paul is the only candidate to not visit Missouri in the last week.
Feb. 5, 2008
Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., applauds with supporters on Sunday at the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers’ building in Bridgeton. After her speech, Clinton opened the floor for questions from supporters.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., enters the JetDirect hangar on Friday at the Spirit of St. Louis Airport. In front of several hundred supporters, including dozens of veterans, McCain pledged his support for the troop surge strategy in Iraq and promised to end the Iraq war.
Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., pauses briefly during a rally attended by more than 20,000 spectators Saturday at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis. Obama addressed his plans to give all students a $4,000 credit for college and to develop a national health care plan that would cover all Americans.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney stand on a pool table to address supporters at Dave & Buster’s in Maryland Heights, Mo. Romney talked about his platform of upholding family values, ending illegal immigration and bolstering the U.S.’s economic impact.
(Click graphic to enlarge)
Missouri, which is viewed by campaigning presidential hopefuls as a crucial swing state because of its tendency to favor the eventual winner of the race, is one state out of 24 to hold nominating contests today.
Today is referred to as Super Tuesday.
Both Democratic and Republican candidates have traversed the Show Me State heavily in recent weeks hoping to snag voters of the historic bellwether state — which since 1900 has picked the winner of every presidential campaign, except in 1956.
The only active candidate that hasn’t personally appeared in Missouri in the last week is Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas.
MU communications professor Mitchell McKinney said Missouri is important in the presidential race because its broad demographical range could allow it to be considered a microcosm for the larger U.S. population.
“It’s a state that tends to indicate how things will go nationally,” McKinney said.
The most recent polls for the GOP candidates in Missouri show Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., leading his competition by at least 6 percent of the vote, according to Realclearpolitics.com, which incorporates an average of eight national polls.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is in second and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who was endorsed by Gov. Matt Blunt, comes in just a few points behind Huckabee.
In national polling averages from Realclearpolitics.com, McCain holds a heavy hand in the race with 42.8 percent.
Romney trails McCain with 24.5 percent of the vote.
Mizzou College Republicans vice president Marcus Bowen said while his organization will not officially endorse a candidate, he thinks that McCain will do “extremely well” on Super Tuesday.
On the Democratic side, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., chipped away at a once commanding lead held by Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.
According to the latest Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll, Obama now leads in Missouri by 5 percent of the vote.
Nationally, the latest polling average shows Clinton with 44.4 percent and Obama with 41.9 percent, according to Realclearpolitics.com.
MU College Democrats president Caitlin Ellis said she is unable to say which Democratic candidate she preferred, but either Democratic candidate would be better than any of GOP hopefuls.
MU communications professor William Benoit said before the numbers began to rise in Obama’s favor, he had thought that the results of Super Tuesday might have decided the Democratic nominee.
“Now it’s so close that I don’t know if that’s the case,” Benoit said.
While it has not been uncommon in past campaigns for a number of states to hold nominating contests on the same day, this year’s Super Tuesday is unprecedented in its size and scope, as 21 states will hold GOP contests and 22 will hold Democratic contests.
In today’s contests, 41 percent of all Republican delegates, and 52 percent of the Democratic delegates will be up for the taking.
With each presidential race, more states have been holding Super Tuesday nominating contests and have been conducting them earlier in the year, Benoit said. He said it is because of the prominence that states can gain from holding contests earlier in the race.
This practice has caused the race for the presidency to become more compressed and front-loaded, which puts more initial strain on candidates’ coffers and limits how many areas they can campaign in on the trail.
California is the grand prize of Super Tuesday states for the candidates; the state holds 173 delegates for the Republicans and 441 for the Democrats.
The polls in California show tight races on both sides, with — according to the latest Realclearpolitics.com — McCain leading Romney with 2.2 percent of the vote on the Republican side and Clinton leading Obama with less than 1 percent of the vote for the Democrats.
New York, the second largest state in terms of its delegacy, gives 101 delegates to the Republican victor today and 281 delegates to the Democratic winner. McCain’s lead there is more impressive than his success in the national polls — McCain has 54.6 percent of the vote, compared to Romney, at second place, with 23.6 percent.
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