10:17 pm ET: Obama's speaking and he just declared himself the Democratic nominee. Nobody cares about Montana anymore but just for the record, he won there. Looks like it'll be by about 5%. So that's it. Fifty states later and we can finally finally move onto the general election. Phew.

10:00 pm ET: Polls close in Montana. Guess what? McCain has won South Dakota. But Ron Paul nabbed a more-than-a-little impressive 14% of the vote. Can't wait to see what headaches the Paulites cause at the GOP convention.

9:40 pm ET: MSNBC and some others calling SD for Hillary. So far it looks like she'll win by about 10%. Terry McAulliffe just told NPR that Clinton is ending the campaign with "a gigantic head of steam." That's one way to spin a loss I guess.

Montana polls still open for another 20 minutes. No results out of there yet.

9:05 pm ET: Polls closed in South Dakota. Still no numbers, but exit polls suggest Clinton will perform well in SD. She was leading among white men and women (which make up most of the state) and among older people. Obama, not surprisingly, has the edge among young voters. Drudge is reporting that the Clinton camp expects a big win in the Mt. Rushmore State, possibly by as much as 25%.

Obama is expected to win Montana, but by what margin is still a guess.

8:20 pm ET: No numbers yet.

Pretty amazing that here at the culmination of the primary process, there are only TWO states that won't have a real impact on deciding who the Democratic nominee is. But it's only fitting that the primaries in those two final states come on the biggest day of the Dem election season thus far. That means South Dakota and Montana got the attention of the candidates up to the very end... and will still get the attention of the nation tonight.

The polls close in South Dakota at 9 PM ET. There are 15 delegates at stake there. In Montana, where there are 16 delegates up for grabs, the polls shut down at 10 ET.

Obama is favored to win in Montana but SD could go either way. Obviously he doesn't need either win at this point, but victories in both states sure would give him an emphatic finish.

The AP is reporting that the flood of superdelegates has now put Obama over the top. From their story:

The AP tally was based on public commitments from delegates as well as more than a dozen private commitments. It also included a minimum number of delegates Obama was guaranteed even if he lost both of the final two primaries in South Dakota and Montana later in the day.

So there you have it. History was made today.

All day long a steady stream of superdelegates had been going Obama's way. The Chicago Tribune reported that at least 25 superdelegates were "poised" to endorse Obama after tonight's contests in Montana and South Dakota. 31 pledged delegates will be decided later this evening. Obama is expected to win big in Montana. South Dakota looks like a toss-up.

Even Clinton loyalist Diane Feinstein told CNN that it is time for Hillary to pack it in.

Get ready for a victory speech tonight.

Fresh off another lopsided win over Sen. Barack Obama in the Puerto Rico Democratic primary, Sen. Hillary Clinton is carrying her campaign through the finish line and making plans to keep on running. The Democratic primary season officially ends on Tuesday with the last two primary states of Montana and South Dakota. But thanks to the ruling of the Rules and Bylaws Committee of the Democratic National Committee on Saturday, Sen. Obama now cannot secure the magic number of delegates needed to clinch the nomination by winning primary contests. Sen. Clinton's campaign sees that as a new opportunity to continue to press her case beyond Tuesday's results.

The Rules and Bylaws Committee voted to seat the disputed delegations from Michigan and Florida, raising the number of delegates needed to secure the nomination from 2025 to 2118. After losing Puerto Rico to Mrs. Clinton by the blowout result of 68-32 percent, Sen. Obama now has 2069 delegates including the superdelegates, 47 shy of the number needed. There are only 31 pledged delegates at stake in Montana and South Dakota, meaning that superdelegates will have to carry Obama across the finish line. Clinton told reporters on her campaign plane that she will begin to make the case directly to those superdelegates after Tuesday, with the goal of pulling some of them away from Obama's camp. "One thing about superdelegates is that they can change their minds," she said.

With the Idaho Republican primary mere hours away, I thought I would be more nervous than I am now. I agreed to get a Ron Paul tattoo if the good Dr. were to win, outright, the starchy wonderland. Although Operation RonDemption showed early promise, it looks like my right arm is safe, and thousands of Paulites like this one, from Daily Dose, are headed for disappointment.

Let's fill those tattoo parlors with a Ron Paul Victory in Idaho!

I was inspired to create Operation: RonDemption by the relative success of Rush Limbaugh's Operation: Chaos. It stood to reason that Ron Paul supporters, united in common cause with Democrats who missed the Idaho caucuses, would blow away a bunch of Dittoheads and hand John McCain a defeat in Idaho.

Sometimes, it helps to visualize, so I had the scientists at Political Machine Laboratories put together this simulation, so you can see what the tattoo might look like.

The Texas Congressman has been scoring impressive results against presumptive nominee John McCain, most recently winning 15% of the vote in Oregon, but with low turnout due to a settled nomination, it's going to take a much more dramatic result to make this more than a footnote. Idaho's open primary is a rare opportunity for Paul boosters and Democrats to work together.

After an initial outburst of support from the Paul-o-sphere, the interest has been steady, but flat.

We're down to the final 3 contests of the Democratic race for the nomination: Puerto Rico (June 1), Montana, and South Dakota (both on June 3). A total of 86 pledged delegates will be decided pending the outcome.

Hillary Clinton won Kentucky by 35 percentage points to net a total of 23 delegates. She also won by a total of roughly 150,000 votes.

Barack Obama won Oregon by 18 percentage points to net a total of 10 delegates (with 94% of precincts reporting). He won by a total of roughly 102,000 votes.

By nearly every count, with last night's additions, Obama has now earned a majority of all pledged delegates. There are 3,253 total pledged delegates in the contest, and Obama has guaranteed that when the final primary results are tallied on June 3, he will have won a majority of those delegates selected via the vote. That is true whether or not one includes Florida and Michigan delegate totals (however one might allocate them).

There are 795 Democratic Superdelegates. According to Real Clear Politics, Obama now leads Clinton in this category by 27: 306 to 279. The reason the pledged delegate threshold is important, is that many superdelegates are on record as saying that they will not go against the final winner in pledged delegates.

Lastly, for the very contentious popular vote tallies, we must tackle the issue of how to come to an agreed upon number. These numbers vary widely depending on how or whether you tally Florida, Michigan, and all the states that held caucuses. To my mind the whole question is rather beside the point, since, as it stands, the Democratic primary is a hodgepodge of contests whose main purpose is to give us a winner in terms of delegates, not individual votes. Whether we should amend this process for future races is another matter.

Kos makes what I think are the right points about this issue in a post that can be read here.

Obama wins big in Oregon and loses even bigger in Kentucky. And we've learned nothing that we didn't know before. Obama sucks with rural Appalachian type white people.

Is this finally going to convince Hillary to bow out? I don't think so, If Obama wins, her next shot at the presidency is 2016 and who knows where she'll be then. If Obama loses she may have a shot in 2012. Either way, it pays off for her to stay in. If Obama loses, she's set to say, "I told you but you wouldn't listen." And if Obama wins, she's done anyway and won't need to convince a bitter and angry Democratic party to turn back to her.

But let's roll the history tape back to 1976 and see another party nominee wannabe who just wouldn't admit it was over until the convention.

I think Hillary really sees herself as another Reagan. And if this is not her time, maybe next time. And if she can't win, she wants to be there on that podium, placing the crown on Obama's head and making the speech that steals the show, and gets the party all wistful that maybe they made the wrong choice.

Which is all hilarious of course, if anyone is Reagan in this remake, it's Obama, but I am telling you, this is how Hillary sees herself. Which may be why she's not getting out. Plus Puerto Rico is coming.

Web TV provided by Ustream Update: I'm mulling the idea of a live webcam. Why? Because I can. What do you guys think?

0:35AM 58-42 in OR with 55% reporting. Better than expected for both candidates tonight, so, as usual, the status quo prevails. I'm going to turn in soon, this will be the end of my written post. I'll finish up on the webcam.

11:35PM Per Tom Fitzsimmons, Ron Paul got 14% of the GOP vote in Oregon. RPFP, Wish Belkin!

11:31PM 59-41 with 40% reporting. An 18 point margin for Obama. If that holds, it's very good, 50% higher than his RCP average.

11:16PM Rachel Maddow!

11:14PM Obama got 52% of non-collee white voters. Huh. Do tell. 83% of Obama's support today was from white voters.

Face Off returns! Two of our writers will be posting separate pieces on a hot-button topic. You can check out both and then vote for the one that speaks to you and aligns with your views.

Today the topic is Hillary: Should she drop out?

Check out today's posts:


Denise Williams writes:

[A] reason to stay is the situation with the rules-breaking Florida and Michigan. Clinton's advocacy (albeit selfish) for these two "disenfranchised" states keeps the heat on to find an equitable solution to seating their delegates in August. Without her continued pressure on Obama and the DNC, voters in these two states may be put off enough to stay home in November or go to McCain.

Continue reading Hillary Should Stay In...

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David Knowles writes:

Last night in West Virginia, Hillary Clinton came away with an impressive 41-point win over Barack Obama. She shaved his popular vote lead by roughly 140,000 votes, and used her surrogates to continue hammer away on the point that Obama can't win with poor, undereducated white voters. The spin from Camp Clinton is that all of this matters in her race race for the nomination with Obama. But the math -- Oh, the dreaded math! -- speaks otherwise.

Continue reading Hillary Should Drop Out...

Last night in West Virginia, Hillary Clinton came away with an impressive 41-point win over Barack Obama. She shaved his popular vote lead by roughly 140,000 votes, and used her surrogates to continue hammer away on the point that Obama can't seem to win over poor, undereducated white voters. The spin from Camp Clinton is that all of this matters in her race race for the nomination with Obama. But the math--Oh, the dreaded math!--speaks otherwise.

From her resounding Mountain Momma thumping of Obama, Clinton netted a total of 9 delegates. That "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" means that as of last night Clinton has suffered a net loss of 19 delegates since Indiana and North Carolina. This morning came word that three more superdelegates were formally endorsing Obama. Clearly, this treadmill is moving faster than its runner--Hillary Clinton--can keep up.

By CNN's count, Clinton now trails by 168 delegates. Newsflash, with four remaining contests, and superdelegates flocking to her opponent, there's simply no way that she is going to make up that difference.

I just listened to Hillary's victory speech. As of right now she's leading 64-29%. Ouch! With numbers like that, this is the last time that West Virginia sees Barack Obama for, like, ever.

Hillary's speech was fairly unspectacular as usual, but in the first few paragraphs, I think she managed to squeeze in just about every West Virginia cliche about mountain people, going to the mountain, etc. Cringe worthy.

And then she started in with a rousing defense of why she's still in the race (remember, when you're explaining, you're losing) But she does have some valid points. She is the "strongest candidate" based on her ability to win swing states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. That it has been since 1916 or so since a Democrat won without West Virginia. That's true, too, but it probably has more to do with West Virginia being a marginally leaning state, and Al Gore came within 300 votes of busting that record.

Anyway, it didn't sound to me like she was quitting, or even thinking about quitting. In her quest to stay in the race, she also received some unexpected support from Obama who stated that the race wasn't over yet. Hillary should send him a thank you card.