Today voters head to the polls in Texas, Ohio, Vermont, and Rhode Island in the most hotly anticipated primary contests since the last ones. Today is make or break for Senator Clinton, who needs to win both big states by large margins to really have any hope of winning the nomination, and needs to at least win Ohio to even have a hope of staying in the race. Currently, both races in the big states seem very tight, while the small states have clear favorites of Obama in Vermont and Clinton in Rhode Island. Ohio is being slammed by a heavy winter storm, which could have an impact on the race. Generally, bad weather affects turnout most among the elderly, and there is flooding in the southeast of the state which is largely Clinton territory. Those factors might indicate that the weather will favor Obama, but it's very difficult to determine that before we can see results.

If Clinton does win Ohio and Rhode Island, she still won't be in the clear. Bill Richardson, for example, has said "Whoever has the most delegates after Tuesday, a clear lead, should be in my judgment the nominee," and I've heard rumors that Pennsylvania's Governor Ed Rendell may switch his support to Obama if Hillary doesn't win both big states. Furthermore, today I've heard rumors that Obama has prepared for the aftermath of tonight by withholding his fundraising numbers for February along with 50 superdelegate endorsements. That many new endorsements for Obama would put him ahead in superdelegates as well as pledged delegates, and certainly overwhelm what minor delegate gains Clinton may be able to achieve today.

While Obama had been gaining steadily in the polls, over the past several days media coverage has been much more favorable for Clinton than for him, and Clinton managed to get two surprise bits of exposure by appearing on Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show. As a result, the past couple days seem to show some movement back towards Clinton. Currently, my prediction for the evening is that Obama will win Texas by about 5%, Clinton will win Ohio by 5%-10%, Obama will win Vermont by a large margin (perhaps greater than 20%), and Clinton will win Rhode Island by around 10%. The Texas popular vote results will somewhat understate the delegates Obama will get there because of the delegate allocation rules and the later caucus in which Obama is expected to do very well.

Polls start closing at 7PM Eastern in Vermont, and we'll probably be up all night thanks to the weather in Ohio and the weirdness of Texas. As before, I'll be updating as the night goes on.

-David Kleppinger, Morons.org Legislative Analyst

UPDATE 7:00PM: Surprise! Obama wins Vermont. No margin yet.

UPDATE 7:30PM: Too close to call in Ohio. Still no margin in Vermont.

UPDATE 8:51PM: Looks like a 20% margin for Obama in Vermont. He'll probably end up with a 9-6 delegate split there. As for Texas and Ohio, we're in for a long night. Results will start to come in from Rhode Island soon, I should expect.

UPDATE 9:22PM: MSNBC calls Rhode Island for Clinton, but it looks like it may be a lot closer than her campaign would have liked.

UPDATE 10:48PM: Never mind, Clinton is going to have a margin in Rhode Island similar to Obama's in Vermont. This is going to be a long night.

UPDATE 10:55PM: CNN is calling Ohio for Clinton. Right now she's up by a huge margin, but the metropolitan areas of Toledo, Cincinnati, Dayton, and Cleveland still have a lot to report, and those are Obama country. The final margin should be significantly closer than it is now.

UPDATE 12:51AM: MSNBC has called Texas for Clinton, but I think it's still too early with a lot of precincts in Obama strongholds yet to report. We'll see.

UPDATE 1:18AM: Ok, now I'm ready to concur that Clinton will win the Texas popular vote, but Obama is still likely to win out on delegates because of the delegate allocation. Ultimately, by the time the dust settles I think Clinton will gain no more than a handful of delegates on the day, and may possibly lose on delegates. Still, it was probably a disappointing night for Obama, who several days ago looked like he would win Texas and possibly Ohio. This is a big shot in the arm for the Clinton campaign, but it ultimately doesn't really change the delegate math all that much. Obama still holds the pledged delegate lead, and if the rumors of a large superdelegate rollout are accurate, he'll soon hold that lead too. In fact, Clinton has to win by wildly unrealistic margins in the remaining contests in order to actually gain a delegate lead from this point. The Clinton strategy definitely seems to be to carry this to the convention and hope to win the nomination by gathering enough superdelegate support. I really hope that doesn't happen, because I really think the party needs to coalesce behind a nominee soon. Hopefully we'll see enough establishment pressure applied in the next couple weeks to force her out. Certainly making this a long, drawn-out fight will not earn Clinton much goodwill among the party, which ultimately damages her long-term political prospects.