West Virginia predictions?

Tonight, we learn the answer to the question I posed last week: Will it still be "over" after West Virginia?

The polls close at 7:30 PM, and, for the first time since February, I expect Wolf Blitzer, Wolf Blitzer will be able to immediately "call" the race, based on exit polls alone. (They even waited a half-hour or so before calling Mississippi.) So it'll be a suspense-free night, with only the margin in doubt. That'll give the "best political team on television" (and the various other networks' political pundit squads) several hours to pontificate about "what it all means": Obama can't win the white working class, Clinton can't catch up in the delegate count, maybe they'll have a "dream ticket," blah blah freakin' blah.

I expect I'll turn off the TV around 7:35 PM.

Anyway... what will Hillary's margin be? The average of the four last polls on RCP is 61-24, but that leaves 15% unaccounted for -- and although John Edwards is prominently on the ballot (see at left), I don't think he'll be getting quite that much support. Al Giordano predicts 69% to 31%, and 20-8 in delegates. Poblano says 67.4% to 28.6% (with 4% for Edwards), and 19-9 in delegates, with the potential for a 20-8 or 21-7 delegate split, depending on the 1st and 3rd districts. I'll be pessimistic, and say 70-25-5, and 21-7. What are your predictions?

Oh, and Pablano predicts a 105,000-vote gain for Hillary in the "popular vote," which is roughly the same as the 107,105-vote estimate I used in this post, and which would put her within a few thousand votes of Obama in the facially ridiculous "don't count Iowa, Nevada, Maine or Washington, but count Florida and Michigan, but don't count Uncommitted for Obama" cumulative tally. (She currently trails that transparently fraudulent "count" by 113,498 votes.)

Meanwhile, Marc Ambinder says the "most important election taking place today is not in West Virginia. It's in Mississippi, for the first congressional district, a seat held since the Republican revolution of 1994 by Republican Roger Wicker. Wicker's retiring, and there's a good possibility that Democrat Travis Childers will win today's run-off election." He adds:

A Dem pick-up here will be a portent of doom for Republicans in the fall. George W. Bush won this district by 25 points (66,000 votes) in 2004. Because Davis and Childers tangled via advertisements over whether Childers had been endorsed by Obama amid Rev. Wright's revenge tour, the press will be tempted to spin a Childers victory as a sign that Obama is not a drag on the ticket. Local factors and the national environment are going to be dispositive here, not Barack Obama. So don't believe the hype.

You can read more about the MS-1 race -- and the GOP "panic" it's causing -- in this RCP article.

Comments

[Jim]

CNN is already spinning the WV outcome as something that could raise fresh doubts about Obama. I thought of you.

I'm not sure what could be "fresh" about an outcome that has been known for over a month.

That said, I don't think she'll win by more than 30 points.

[Jim]

Looks like I gave WV too much credit. I also now take offense to your use of Cletus to represent WV residents, as I think it is unfair to Cletus.

[JT]

Looks to me like Edwards has the best chance to win in the fall among dems. The economy became the biggest issue after he dropped out.