Watching The Pennsylvania Results Come In

1:50AM With 98.91% of the precincts reporting the Pennsylvania secretary of state reports Clinton 54.3% to Obama 45.7%, or a margin of between 8 and 9 points. There is currently a vote difference of 193,377. Hillary Clinton, after all the sound and fury, will only net somewhere between 8 to 11 delegates coming out of Pennsylvania. Barack Obama just spent Hillary Clinton into debt and she barely got a handful of delegates.

10:38PM Philadelphia is coming in very strong for Obama, currently 65% to 35% (with over 125,000 vote margin) with 95% of the precincts reporting. The Philadelphia suburbs are yet to come in. Currently with 76% of the precincts reporting in Pennsylvania Clinton leads 54% to 46%. Her popular vote lead in Pennsylvania is currently about 140,000. That puts her on track for less than 200,000 vote margin out of Pennsylvania. It looks like, if these numbers hold (and they may narrow), Hillary Clinton has lost ground on Barack Obama with time running out. What was impossible is about to become even more so after Pennsylvania is done.

9:35PM With 20% of the precincts reporting, Clinton leads about 53% to 47%. Philadelphia is slow to come in, but enough has come in for the networks to call it for Clinton. Obama is winning Philadelphia with nearly 60%. He needed about 70% to turn the race in his favor. But 60% in Philadelphia may be enough to keep the margin of Clinton’s victory small.

8:51PM MSNBC calls it for Hillary Clinton. Now we wait for all the votes to come in to see what her margin of victory is.

8:37PM MSNBC has changed their designation from "too close to call" to "too early to call". With nearly none of the precincts reporting Clinton has a lead. The change in terminology suggests that MSNBC will eventually call it for Clinton. The real question is by how much will she win.

8:22PM There are some interesting exit polls for Obama. He is taking Philadelphia by 69%, Philadelphia suburbs by 62%, Pittsburgh by 38% and holding at 42% in the rest of the state. Those numbers are in Ed Rendell territory (Rendell beat Casey by 10 points by raking up numbers around Philadelphia). Obama is also doing significantly better amongst white men than he did in Ohio. I am still holding to my prediction of Clinton 52.8% to Obama 47.2%, but these exit polls are pleasantly surprising.

8:09PM The conversation on MSNBC is about how Clinton can exit the race gracefully. The atmospherics coming from the Clinton campaign suggest they are preparing the ground to spin a narrow victory. It’s either rope-a-dope or genuine nervousness. We shall see.

8:00PM As polls close MSNBC has it too close to call. This could be a long night.

7:26PM Polls close in about 30 minutes. Early exit polls abound. On the aggregate, unreliable, early exits Drudge has Clinton up 52% to 48%, while NRO has Obama up 52% to 47%. Both numbers probably mean practically nothing. The internal numbers from exit polls from CNN, MSNBC and others are much more interesting. Gun owners go to Clinton 58% to 42%, African Americans go to Obama 92% to 8%, first time voters go to Obama 60% to 38%, late deciders go to Clinton 58% to 42%, white males go to Clinton 55% to 45%.

Hillary Clinton’s topline number (that with gun owners) is 58% to 42%. Assuming all Pennsylvanians owned guns, Clinton would win by a 16% margin.  Given that some other demographics are going to Obama, and some substantially toward Obama, the exits suggest a single digit Clinton victory at best. The real wildcard is what percentage of the vote Obama wins in and around Philadelphia and what percentage of the total votes comes from that region. Reports suggest huge turnout in and around Philadelphia. We will find out how large in the next few hours.