"I am very grateful for the broad support you have given our campaign," McCain said. "And I am very, very grateful and pleased to note that tonight, my friends, we have won enough delegates to claim with confidence, humility and a sense of great responsibility that I will be the Republican nominee for President of the United States."
"I want to thank all of you here -- all the Republicans, independents, and independent-thinking Democrats, in all parts of the country, who supported our campaign for the nomination, and have brought us across the finish line first, an accomplishment that once seemed to more than a few doubters unlikely."
McCain also said that his campaign was beginning its most important phrase: "to make a respectful, determined and convincing case to the American people that our campaign and my election as President, given the alternatives presented by our friends in the other party, are in the best interests of the country we love."
]]>Huckabee said he called McCain to congratulate him and offered "my commitment to him and to the party to do everything possible to unite our party, to more importantly to unite our country, so that we can be the best nation we can be."
"Senator McCain has an honorable campaign because he is an honorable man," Huckabee said.
Huckabee noted that he began his campaign with little name recognition and financial resources. With a shoestring budget, Huckabee won a handful of Southern primaries in the Super Tuesday voting on February 5, which established McCain emerged as the clear Republican front-runner and effectively forced the exit of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who had been competing with Huckabee for the votes of conservatives.
]]>Cuyahoga (1,314,241) - Cleveland Franklin (1,095,662) - Columbus Hamilton (822,596) - Cincinnati Summit (545,931) - Akron Montgomery (542,237) - Dayton Lucas (445,281) - Toledo Stark (380,575) - Canton Butler (354,992) - north of Cincinnati Lorain (301,993) - Elyria, Lorain, Oberlin College; located west of Cleveland Mahoning (251,026) - Youngstown
]]>The networks have also declared McCain the winner in Ohio, where he won all 31 "at-large" delegates that were at stake. The winner of each of Ohio's 18 congressional districts wins all of that district's delegates. McCain will probably beat Mike Huckabee handily in Ohio, so it's possible that McCain will win all 18 congressional districts and sweep all of the Ohio Republican delegates.
McCain becoming the Republican presidential nominee is a matter of "when" and not "if." But he would like to be recognized as the official Republican nominee as soon as possible; Republican strategists surely would like the contrast between a Republican Party that has rallied behind their standard-bearer and a Democratic Party that may need more time to determine its nominee.
]]>As has been the case in previous Democratic primaries, Clinton is doing well among lower-income voters and those with less formal education, while Obama is doing better among upper-income voters who are well-educated. Among those with no college degree (63 percent of respondents), Clinton led Obama 55%-44% in the exit poll. Obama led by that same margin among college graduates, though this bloc comprised just 37 percent of the vote. That seems to be a good sign for Clinton, notwithstanding the fact that the race appears too close to call at this very early stage.
Asked if the candidate had a "clear plan" for the nation, 68 percent said this was true about Clinton and 57 percent said this was true about Obama.
One of the most striking findings in the exit poll is that 78 percent of respondents said they were worried about their family's financial situation; this group favored Clinton, 52%-47%. Obama narrowly beat Clinton, 50%-49%, among the one-fifth of Ohio Democratic voters who said they were not worried about their family financial situation.
About 47 percent of Ohio Democrats said the top quality in a candidate is that he or she "can bring change," and these voters went for Obama 73%-27%. Among the 28 percent of respondents who said the top candidate quality is "experience," Clinton trounced Obama, 94%-6%.
]]>Polling stations close in Ohio at 7:30 p.m. Stay tuned ...
]]>By contrast, in left-leaning and dovish Vermont, where Barack Obama is expected to defeat Hillary Rodham Clinton, about as many Democratic voters identified the Iraq War as the top issue as did those who chose the economy.
Stay tuned to this space this evening (and through tomorrow morning!) for analysis on the returns in these states.
]]>With 97 percent of precincts reported according to the Associated Press, the votes counted in the Democratic primary totaled just about 1.1 million. The Republican primary turnout was just more than 400,000.
This occurred in a battleground state -- Democrat John Kerry beat President George W. Bush there by just 1 point -- which also conducted an "open" primary Tuesday. Wisconsin doesn't register voters by party, so any voter, regardless of personal partisan affiliation, could vote in either party's primary.
The fact that the race for the Democratic nomination between Sens. Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York remains much more competitive than the Republican contest that has been virtually locked up by Arizona Sen. John McCain may be something of a factor, but this kind of proportional imbalance was seen in many states even when there was more of a Republican race.
It's not just that Obama received nearly three times more votes in easily winning the Wisconsin Democratic primary than McCain did in easily winning the state's GOP contest. McCain also received fewer than half the votes taken by Clinton as she finished a distant second in the Democratic race.
The turnout for Tuesday's primary also was considerably higher than for the heated Democratic primary held in Wisconsin on Feb. 17, 2004, in which Kerry out-competed then-North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean. That contest drew a total of roughly 826,000 voters.
]]>Speaking at a packed rally at a sports arena in Houston -- where he shifted his campaign in advance of the key Texas primary scheduled for March 4 -- Obama acknowledged the win in Wisconsin (which gave him a nine-event winning streak in primaries and caucuses held after the Feb. 5 Super Tuesday contests). But he mostly gave his stump speech, in typically dynamic style, that ran to about 45 minutes ... and which some networks carried at length.
While Obama's comments about Arizona Sen. John McCain -- the virtually certain Republican nominee -- were not new to him, they did create a bit of a sense of a long-distance debate. McCain earlier in the evening, in remarks to supporters in Columbus, Ohio, following his own Tuesday win in Wisconsin, had leveled barely veiled criticisms at Obama as too inexperienced -- especially on defense and foreign policy matters -- to be president.
"I revere and honor his service to this country, he is a genuine American hero," Obama said of McCain, who was a Vietnam War POW. "But when he embraces George Bush's failed economic policies, when he says he's willing to send our troops into another 100 years in Iraq, then he represents the policies of yesterday and I want to be the candidate of tomorrow. And I'm looking forward to having that debate with John McCain."
]]>With just more than half of precincts reporting, roughly 520,000 votes had been counted in the Democratic primary -- to just a bit more than 207,000 on the Republican side. This occurred in an "open primary" state, meaning that voters, regardless of partisan identification, could vote in either party's primary.
]]>Illinois Sen. Barack Obama continued to show strong appeal to non-traditional Democratic primary voters in today's Wisconsin primary, which does not register voters by party and therefore held an "open" primary.
Exit polling showed that New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton actually edged Obama, 52% to 47%, among white Democratic voters who made up just more than half of the Democratic primary electorate. But among independent voters, who were about a quarter of the Democratic primary electorate, Obama held a dominant 60-30 lead over Clinton. The crossover Republicans who participated in the Democratic primary -- about a tenth of the exit poll respondents -- favored Obama with 70 percent of their votes.
Clinton held a narrow edge among women voters, but Obama dominated among men voters by more than a 2-1 margin.
]]>"I want to talk to you about the choice you have in this election and why that choice matters," Clinton said. "It is about picking a president that relies not just on words but on work and hard work to get America back."
"We can't just have speeches. We've got to have solutions. And we need those solutions for America," she added.
"They need a president ready on day one to be commander-in-chief, ready to manage the economy and ready to beat the Republicans in November. With your help I will be that president," Clinton stated later in her speech. "One of us is ready to commander-in-chief in dangerous world."
CQ Politics' Grigs Crawford contributed on this article.
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