Super Tuesday Results 5

CLINTON, MCCAIN WIN CALIFORNIA

The big results came in almost simultaneously around 12:15am.

Clinton: Held onto lead in California, lower-than-expected African-American turnout, Clinton keeps Hispanics without much erosion. An important factor that might have been a key to her success was early-voting: Many people voted before Obama took off as of late with his momentum, adding credence to the conventional wisdom that if Super Tuesday would have been held one week later, Obama might have fared better in California. Clinton's lead in California is indeed quite substantial. Women made up 55% of California Democratic voters, 57% voted for Clinton. 65% of Hispanics voted for Clinton. As the delegates come in, we'll have a clearer picture as to where this race stands, but I believe it's not completely over for Obama.

McCain: Arnold Schwarzenegger's endorsement might have been the key to putting McCain over the top. Among Republican voters many approved of Gov. Schwarzenegger and among those who approved of him, they went for McCain. More exit polling data to be posted as they become available.

Today, Wednesday, Romney will have "frank discussions" with his staff as to where he goes from here.

The narrative will be on full display later this morning as the spinning continues when Today, Good Morning America, and The Early Show go live on the East Coast.

Update (12:57am ET): NBC News predicts that the Delegate count for Democrats as of right now has Obama +4, 841-837.

Update (8:25am ET): RCP's delegate counts with the overnight numbers coming in have Clinton leading Obama in the Delegates count, 897-822, which has Hillary +75.

Update (8:43am ET): Tim Russert went on the Today show, saying that NBC's projections hold that Obama captured 840 delegates last night, to Clinton's 830. The Obama Campaign believes that they won 845 delegates to Clinton's 836, as shown on a spreadsheet which they released. They also state that in terms of total delegates number, Obama has 908 pledged delegates to Clinton's 884.

Note: RCP is using projections gather from the Associated Press, Washington Post, CBS News and RCP's own numbers. At this point, however, with how NBC and the Obama campaigns have successfully analyzed the race (the Obama campaign was the first to accurately state that they had indeed won more delegates in Nevada), I trust that the NBC News and Obama numbers give us higher confidence in their prognostication. DrudgeReport also believes this as he has made "Election Shock: Obama passes Clinton in Delegate Count" as its top headline.