Potomac Primary

Because the Potomac River runs through the two states and the District of Columbia which vote today in Republican and Democratic Party primaries, the primary elections are being called the "Potomac Primary".

What is also being called by most political analysts here is that it should be a very good day for Illinois Senator Barack Obama as he continues his quest for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party. His rival, New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, also hopes to do well in the Potomac Primary but perhaps in a different way.

Most pre-election polls indicate that Senator Obama leads Senator Clinton in Maryland by 18-23 points; in Virginia by 15-22 points, and with the District of Columbia having one of the highest percentages of African-American populations in the nation (56 percent), Senator Obama is all but conceded the District's primary delegates as well.

At stake for the Democrats are 168 of 238 total delegates; currently, Sen. Obama leads Sen. Clinton in overall delegates according to RealClearPolitics.com, 1144 to 1138; 2025 are needed to win.

With momentum going Sen. Obama's way, an interesting development occurs. Suddenly, he is the frontrunner in the spotlight and expectations rise that he will win convincingly today. Perceptions are everything in politics, and now not only is he supposed to win, but he is supposed to win "big". Anything less, several commentators point out, could be construed not as a loss necessarily, but a result that would engender the question: why didn't he win by more? An actual defeat in either Virginia or Maryland would be the surprise of the month.

While polls do not indicate that Sen. Obama will lose, there are some things to keep in mind that may hold down the magnitude of any Sen. Obama victory. The state of Maryland seems tailor-made for Sen. Obama. Some 37 percent of Democratic primary voters there will be African-American, a group Sen. Obama is winning almost monolithically, and Maryland has large concentrations of educated, affluent voters, another group in which Sen. Obama scores well.

But there are also working-class enclaves in Maryland with voters who are not as affluent as their suburban neighbors and who live mostly in rural areas and suburban Baltimore (Maryland's largest city). These would presumably favor Sen. Clinton; there are also many activists who were part of the Clinton administration in Maryland who would also vote for the New York senator and the state's governor and senior senator have endorsed Sen. Clinton.

Over in Virginia, the race also leans towards Sen. Obama but again, there are pockets of voters who will support Sen. Clinton--professional women and seniors, the growing Latino communities and those citizens who worked in the Clinton administration. So again, while it looks good for Sen. Obama (according to polling data), the question is not whether he wins, but by how much.

So how much is how much? My professional antennae tell me that anything less then a ten-percentage point win for Sen. Obama in either state could be considered a "loss" in the expectations game; So while Sen. Obama is still favored to win both states, it's the margin that is critical. And as I said earlier, a loss by Sen. Obama in either state could be a blow to his efforts.

Over on the Republican side, it's also about margin but the Republican margin is about the number of votes garnered by former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee as he continues the race against the presumptive nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona. No one doubts Sen. McCain will win the Potomac Primary. The question is, by how much.

Recent surveys in Virginia of more than 400 voters show the Arizona senator with 20-point leads; but tracking surveys of less than 400 voters by SurveyUSA show that Gov. Huckabee has closed a 32-point margin on 2/7 to 2/8, to an 11-point margin on 2/9 to 2/10. Sen. McCain is doing very well in Maryland and there are no late trends to indicate otherwise.

But if the SurveyUSA trend in Virginia is true, it's another irritant to Sen. McCain who is trying to rally all Republicans to his candidacy. It could show he still has some work to do but he does have the time to do it. The question then becomes how long Gov. Huckabee stays in the race (along with Cong. Ron Paul of Texas).

Turnout is expected to be heavy in the Potomac Primary, particularly in the Democratic Party, which has been true for almost all the contests to date.

I'll be posting results later tonight (8 pm EST--0100 UTC). The expectation is the contests will be called early; the later the call, the more interesting the result. You can also tune to VOA shortwave frequencies and follow the voting on www.voanews.com.

And again, I welcome your questions and comments. The e-mail address is over to the right and you can post a comment if you wish.