NBC News political director Chuck Todd has crunched the numbers and makes the following projections based on the results out of Virginia for delegate allocation (not including DC or Maryland yet):

In Virginia alone, Barack Obama is projected to take home between 49 and 52 pledged delegates, while Hillary Clinton is projected to bring in about 31 to 34. If the spread is on the higher end and Obama is able to net a gain of 20+ delegates, he would extend his lead among pledged delegates (excluding Michigan and Florida) to 1077 to 975 -- more than making up for Clinton's lead among superdelegates. Interesting stuff.

Update [2008-2-12 20:48:52 by Jonathan Singer]: CNN now similarly has Obama up 1,170 delegates to 1,168 delegates over Clinton when superdelegates are included.

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Mike Huckabee gave John McCain a run for his money, but it looks like McCain is going to win the Virginia primaries (though with well under half of the votes received by Barack Obama in the state).

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They're calling it a "substantial victory" for Barack Obama. Actual results at they come in...

Update [2008-2-12 19:2:33 by Jonathan Singer]: According to Norah O'Donnell on MSNBC, support among White men was key to Obama's projected win. To add, the race on the Republican side is still too close to call.

Update [2008-2-12 19:12:51 by Jonathan Singer]: Wow. Only one precinct in, but looking through the exit polls, Obama won women (58/42) as well as men (65/34). NBC News stresses his support among White men, in particular, in helping him pick up 48 percent of the White vote to 51 percent for Hillary Clinton. Obama also won among African-American voters by a 90 percent to 10 percent margin. Lastly, at least for now, Obama got strong Independent and even Republican support today (66 percent and 70 percent, respectively) but also carried self-identifying Democrats by a 59 percent to 41 percent margin.

Update [by Jonathan Singer]:Here are the actual early results:

√ Barack Obama: 286,021 votes (63.40 percent)
Hillary Clinton: 159,727 votes (35.40 percent)

1,678 of 2,472 (67.88 percent) reporting

Update [2008-2-12 19:30:12 by Todd Beeton]:A friend of mine who does such things has crunched the exit polls and finds a likely end result of 61-38% for Obama over Clinton; in other words, once again, what Survey USA said.

Update [2008-2-12 19:32:38 by Jonathan Singer]: One more thing to add from the exit polling, Obama won Latino voters in Virginia by a 55 percent to 45 percent margin. This isn't Texas, but it's not a bad omen for Obama in the Lone Star State, either.

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Some quick demographics of the Virginia primary electorate, from MSNBC:

Women 56%
Men 44%

White 63%
Black 29%
Other 8%

Interesting, black turnout is down 4% from 4 years ago, although precisely in keeping with Survey USA's final poll.

17-29 11% (up 3% since 2004)
30-44 25%
45-64 35%
65+ 28% (up 5% since 2004)

First time voter 35%
Voted Previously 64%

On paper, a good sign for Obama: the first time voter number is up 9% from 2004.

As a sidenote, pro-Clinton local blog Not Larry Sabato called Virginia pretty early for Obama, based on what, I'm not sure, so clearly, the signs seem to be pointing to a blowout. Something else to concern the Clinton camp also per NLS in Breaking Blue:

Major accidents in both Maryland and Virginia on the beltway which will slow Hillary's most loyal voting block from the polls. It's taking 3 hours to get from Washington D.C. to central Fairfax on I-395!!!! The big difference here is Maryland closes their polls with D.C. at 8 p.m., while Virginia closes in less than an hour at 7 p.m. Will Governor Kaine (an Obama supporter) keep the polls open so these likely Hillary voters can vote? Stay tuned!!!

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A couple weeks ago, I found an interesting post on right-wing blog race42008 wherein a Virginia Republican blogger pledged to vote for Hillary Clinton in Virginia's Feb. 12th open primary. As he explained then:

It looks like by the time the first post-Super Tuesday primaries are held here in Virginia, the Republican nomination battle will be more or less wrapped up. Between the Arnold and Rudy endorsements and Huckabee and Romney splitting the conservative vote, I'm just not sure anyone other than McCain will be viable by then.

So what's a Republican to do? Take a page from Kos, of course. You will recall that in the Michigan primary, Kos urged Democrats to vote for Romney, on the theory that he would be the weakest general election candidate.

Since then, Romney has dropped out and Huckabee has made a real play for Virginia, so I was skeptical that Hillary Clinton would see a cross-over Republican bounce. But then diarist jmr1948 finds an interesting piece over at NRO's The Corner:

My wife and I have never voted for anything left of Republican, frequently voting on the Conservative party line when available.  Yet today, we both voted for Hillary in the VA primary.  Why?  Because it seems McCain has it wrapped up, so why waste our vote on the Republican side; she is a lot less scary than Obama in many ways (better the Devil you know), and I think she is more easily beaten with her high negatives and lack of charisma.  So we were part of the high Dem turn out today which I am sure you will hear about.  And there is no way we will ever vote Dem in November.

We live in a highly conservative precinct (Eric Cantor is our Congressman).  I saw many folks today picking up the Democratic ballot also.  I think my wife and I were far from alone in our thinking.

But anyone who thinks the cross-over voting would automatically benefit Hillary Clinton, think again, Ambinder brings us this e-mail from a Republican reader:

I have heard no less than five [CONSERVATIVE THINK TANK] staffers say they voted for Obama today. Personally I think their calculus is all wrong and I plan to vote for Hillary later today.

The cross-over vote is something to look for as the post-mortem on the Virginia race is written. For what it's worth, Survey USA's final Virginia poll, which has Obama up 60-38, has Republicans making up just 6% of the Democratic primary electorate and breaking for Obama  63-27. Something tells me GOP voters will make up a slightly higher portion than this, but whether it will break for Obama as they suggest is a big question.

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