McCain - 48%
Obama - 39%
I don’t think anybody believes that Texas can turn blue this election cycle, but last month McCain was leading by 14, and the fact that we’re not seeing single digits is definitely unexpected.
How has Obama made up ground in this solidly red state?

She lost 1 to Obama and picked up 2 undecideds, so that’s +1 for today.
So who was the super? Rep. Ciro Rodriguez from Texas:
“A big reason is because his district voted so overwhelmingly for her, that’s one of the biggest reasons,” said Rodriguez’ spokesman Josh Rosenblum.
Rodriguez said in a statement issued by the Clinton campaign [...]

From Politico:
A Texas DNC member, Jaime A. Gonzalez Jr., is coming out for Clinton, a campaign source says.
The move by Gonzalez, a trial lawyer, gives her a net gain on the day.
ALSO: He’s on Rules & Bylaws, which could be handy in a fight over Florida and Michigan.
I didn’t hear about any other superdelegate pickup [...]

Ask Paul Silver…
Our Travis County gathering of 8,000 was important enough to attract dozens of speeches by local candidates, elected representatives and included Terry McAuliffe of the Clinton Campaign. State leaders of the Clinton and Obama campaigns participated in our convention. The credentials committees that deal with disputes resolved scores of issues . My particular [...]

Personally, I never thought Rush had this much pull, but if we’re talking about 60,000 people here or 80,000 people there, it begins to make sense. Not a lot of voters are needed to really swing these things or make them closer than they would have been. And closing the gap even by 5% is [...]

I missed it (obviously), but here are the details (audio here) …

Apparently Rush had a guest host that day because he was “sick.” Heh, okay…
Folks, this is an ex-President! That is absolutely nuts! But he apparently wanted to get all those ditto heads to come vote for Hillary so she could stay in the race. [...]

When the caucus votes are FINALLY tallied, that’s the probably outcome.
From NPR:
[...] one-third of the 193 delegates at stake this week were not awarded by the primary but by the caucuses held after the polls were closed. A record 4 million voters showed up for the primary, and a record 1.1 million also stayed for [...]

With around 39% precincts reporting, the political world is wondering when the other 61% come in.
TPM has the answer (emphasis mine):
Eric Kleefeld called down to Texas, and the Democratic Party tells him, in so many words, that the caucus reporting was voluntary.
Precincts were not required to report results to the state party, but they set [...]

I don’t think so, and the numbers don’t either…
- Obama won Republicans more narrowly than usual, 52-47. In vote terms, that translates to roughly 134,000 to 123,000.
- Overall, Clinton won Texas by just under 100,000 votes.
It’s a close call, but unless the vast majority of Republicans who voted for Clinton (more than 80%) did so [...]

I’m looking at the county-by-county numbers in Texas at CNN and I think Clinton could very well win this. Travis County, home to Austin and its energized youthful voters, has almost 2/3 of the vote in and Obama has just 63% of the vote. I thought Obama could get as much as 75% of Travis [...]

The Texas Democratic Party has seriously embarrassed itself tonight as the caucuses have been a complete disaster. Reports include voters shut out because of fire code violations, ridiculously long waits, too few ballots, police called out to calm crowds and numerous voting irregularities. Did they not think people were going to show up for the [...]

Well, they’re technically tied 49% to 49%, but she has more votes now.
Clinton - 731,235 - 49%
Obama - 723,944 - 49%
The biggest caveat with these numbers? They don’t include Dallas, Houston or Austin. So we might see a big swing back toward Obama after those come in.
Keep checking back!
UPDATE:
She pulls into the lead for real…
Clinton [...]

From CNN:
Clinton holds roughly a 10-point advantage over Obama among those in Ohio who decided who to vote for in the last three days. Among those voters who decided before that, Clinton and Obama are split.
In Texas, Clinton holds even a larger advantage among late deciders. Those who decided in the last three days [...]

From CNN:
(CNN) — In what may be bad news for Clinton, Democrats across all four states overwhelmingly say they want super delegates to vote based on which candidate finishes ahead in the pledged delegate count at the end of the primary season.
Majorities of Democrats in Texas (62 percent), Ohio (61 percent), Rhode Island (57 percent) [...]

Where is he getting this from?
Obama - 453,678 - 58%
Clinton - 326,890 - 41%
CNN shows this, with 1% voting…
Obama - 484,961 - 56%
Hillary - 368,373 - 43%
How many voters will there be in the Texas primary? In California, there were 4.1 million. In New York, there were only 1.7 million. Those are the two biggest [...]

Alter’s problem is not math. It is word comprehension. The problem with his thesis is that he conflates a lead in pledged delegates with “the will of the people”. The pledged delegate total is many things, but the one thing it is not, is the “will of the people”.

Josh Marshall has the scoop…
I’m looking at the second wave of exit polls. They show an Obama blowout in Vermont, which was entirely expected and basically dead even in Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island, the latter two of which would be pretty substantial surprises.
But again, these are exit polls, and they haven’t been incredibly reliable [...]

Texas hasn’t had a relevant primary campaign in over a generation. Maybe that’s why both Democratic candidates seemed so clueless here. They know how to address the Iowa agricultural community, the New Hampshire independent streak, the South Carolina African Americans. They even do pretty well with the myriad of local concerns and interests found within [...]

From Pollster come the trends.
First, Texas…

To me, this shows the “It’s 3 a.m.” ad is working, even though others say it has little effect on undecideds. Personally, I do think the Texas contest favors Obama because of the popular vote/caucus mix, and I think that’s why he’s going to be in Texas tomorrow night.
Now, Ohio…

It’d [...]

That’s the claim from Mark Penn, so take that for what it’s worth…
From TPM:
Mark Penn, on a conference call with reporters just now, suggested that that the controversial red-phone-ringing-at-3-A.M. ad is resonating with “millions” of voters.
Asked for some evidence of this, Penn asserted that the campaign’s internal polls support the claim. “What we’re seeing internally,” [...]