KEY POINTS:
Super Tuesday has morphed into What If Wednesday, as political analysts pore over the results from yesterday's huge vote.
Nobody delivered a knock-out blow for either the Democrats or the Republicans and suddenly the states that vote in coming weeks mean more than they might have imagined several months before.
Democrat voters really are split. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton virtually tied on the night, with Clinton's earlier advantage melting away as Obama gained more name recognition and won over voters. Clinton remains slightly ahead in estimated delegate counts and she appears to have just edged the popular vote on Super Tuesday. But Obama won more states on the night. CNN has been crunching the voting numbers and they demonstrate how the split is occurring.
Men mostly voted for Obama, women for Clinton.
Older people mostly voted for Clinton, younger people for Obama.
White and Latino voters mostly backed Clinton, while African-Americans voted for Obama.
College-educated voters mostly backed Obama, and non-college-educated went for Clinton.
The challenge for both candidates now is to try to eat into the voting base of the other. I suspect that might be a little easier for Obama than Clinton, because some Democrats really do seem to have something against the Clintons. Obama is more of a blank canvas. Obama continues today to try to portray himself as the underdog, although he admitted he is less of an underdog than he was two weeks ago. Clinton is doing her best to look confident and is talking of being "ahead". She says she's in the race to win.
Both candidates are trying to dampen talk that the ongoing battle will divide and harm the Democrat party.
The Republicans, too, have their problems. John McCain has a big lead in the estimated delegate count over Mitt Romney, but the number of voters who backed Mike Huckabee in the Southern states shows a big chunk of dissatisfaction with both McCain and Romney. That dissatisfaction is rooted in the conservative side of the party. There is no doubt McCain did well on Super Tuesday and he is the clear front-runner. Speculation today moved to whether Romney might quit, but he said he is carrying on. He has a personal fortune he could use to keep fighting McCain in coming weeks, but he will have to think hard about whether it's really worth it.
The next states to vote will do so as early as this Saturday. Louisiana votes then, and later in February there are also contests in Kansas, Maine, DC, Maryland, Virginia, Hawaii, Washington and Wisconsin. In early March two big states, Ohio and Texas, vote in what could turn out to be crucial polls for the Democrat race in particular.
I can't help but think Obama has the advantage of momentum as he and Clinton head off to campaign in these other states now. Obama himself is convinced that when he meets people and voters hear or see him, he does well. So while Clinton is seeking to debate issues with him in coming weeks, Obama only wants a small number of television debates and hopes to get out and meet as many people as he can instead. Clinton no doubt wants to try to pin him down on certain domestic issues, but she might have a hard time getting him into many head-to-heads to do that. Tactics now will be all-important. Candidates have to decide which states to spend time in, where to run their ads, how hard to attack their opponents. McCain will be hoping to carry an air of inevitability into the next contest. Obama will be hoping to look like he's on a roll and part of a movement. Clinton will be trying to project that she is the experienced one and can hold off her rival. There's a lot to come in these two contests yet.
This is my last blog, I'm flying to New Zealand in a few days' time to get back into the domestic political scene, and the interesting election year we have ahead of us. Thanks for reading, it's been fun to write.
