Presidential Primary Update

Updated: Wednesday, March 5, 2008, 6:32 am -- Congressman Dennis Kucinish has handily won his democrat primary in Cleveland. He will run to retain his seat in the November general election. Moods are split in his district, and in greater Cleveland, where many feel the two-time presidential candidate should focus more on his district and drop his national aspirations.

********
Updated: Tuesday, March 4, 2008, 11:19 pm -- CBS News is calling Ohio for Hillary Clinton. And Steven Green is drunk blogging the primary returns (start at the bottom of his page and scroll back toward the top).

********
Headlines:

-- Mike Huckabee has dropped out of the race.

-- John McCain just declared victory with enough delegates to snag the GOP nomination. He pledged to listen to voters, not just to talk to them (I hope he means it).

-- Hillary Clinton has a comfortable lead in Ohio, but the large urban areas of Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton and Akron/Canton -- where a higher african-american turnout is expected to benefit Barack Obama, have not yet been counted. Experts say the races in Ohio and Texas are still too close to call. With 39 percent of precincts reporting (at 10:34 pm eastern), Clinton has a comfortable lead with 57 percent of voters vs. Obama's 41 percent in the democrat primary. Another 2 percent of the votes tallied thus far have gone to John Edwards.

-- A judge and the Ohio Secretary of State kept the polls open in two Ohio counties until 9 pm tonight because of a shortage of paper ballots. That delay meant all reporting stations across the state waited until 9 pm to start tabulating vote totals.

-- Hocking County in south Central Ohio moved three polling places during the day because of rising water and the fear of flood near polling stations, or inability of voters to get to the polls.

-- Hispanic voters in Texas came out in huge numbers today, and exit polling shows that is benefitting Hillary Clinton.

-- In both Texas and Ohio, in the democrat primary, young voters came out for Barack Obama, while older voters supported Hillary Clinton.

-- Hillary Clinton has won the Rhode Island democrat primary.

-- Barack Obama has won the Vermont democrat primary.

-- Dennis Kucinich, Ohio congressman who twice has run for president, is struggling to retain his seat against four primary challengers in the reliably democrat district in and around Cleveland.