February 05, 2008 04:38 pm
—
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Through drizzle and downpours, Missourians rushed from their vehicles to their polling places Tuesday to pick their preferred presidential nominees in a pair of closely contested Democratic and Republican primaries.
A historical bellwether, Missouri provided both an important testing ground and a rich reward for candidates — offering the fourth-largest prize for Republicans and placing among the top third for Democrats in terms of the delegates at stake in the couple of dozen Super Tuesday states.
All five leading Democratic and Republican candidates made weekend campaign stops in Missouri leading up to the primary. Prospective voters were targeted repeatedly with telephone calls and TV ads.
Democratic Sens. Hillary Clinton, of New York, and Barack Obama, of Illinois, appeared locked in a close race, according to public opinion polls in advance of the election.
Sen. John McCain, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee all remained optimistic of emerging atop Missouri’s three-way Republican race.
Many local election officials reported greater-than-usual interest in Missouri’s presidential primary. The number of absentee ballots cast was higher than — and in some cases, double — those for the 2004 and 2000 primaries. The statewide projected voter turnout of 28 percent also would be double that of four years ago.
Secretary of State Robin Carnahan had heard of only a few isolated voting problems Tuesday.
One of the main reasons Missouri is often cited as a bellwether is that its voters have correctly picked the winner of every presidential election except one in the past 100 years. (The exception came in 1956, when Missourians narrowly chose Democrat Adlai Stevenson of neighboring Illinois instead of Republican President Dwight Eisenhower.) That track record applies to the general election. This was Missouri’s fourth-ever presidential primary.
Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.