Make It Obama in 08

When polls close at 7 p.m. New York time, one sign will be whether Republican Mitt Romney, 60, is winning Georgia’s evangelical Christian voters, a bloc he needs to continue his battle against Arizona Senator John McCain, 71. A loss in Georgia, one of Romney’s stronger states, may presage a sweep for McCain.

Georgia also looms large for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. The state’s African-American population is as about as large proportionally as South Carolina’s, where Obama won a 29-percentage-point victory over Hillary Clinton. Obama wants to duplicate that success with a heavy turnout and overwhelming black voter support.

Over the next 90 minutes, returns will come in from 10 more states, including primaries in the Northeast. Anything other than victory for New York Senator Clinton in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Delaware would be a coup for Obama, an Illinois senator.

“If Clinton loses New Jersey that’s a huge, huge problem for her,” said G. Terry Madonna, a professor at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. “We’ll know almost immediately that she has a problem” in the rest of the contest.

Voters in Georgia, where the first results are likely to emerge in today’s 24-state presidential nominating process, may give clues to the outcome of the Super Tuesday primaries.

Idaho

“I was laughing when I saw he was in Idaho,” said Ronald Platt, an Obama supporter and longtime Democratic Party activist. “But they’ve got caucuses. Most people feel he’s going to win Idaho just like he’s going to win Alaska.”

If McCain wins most of the states where he’s favored, he may become the overwhelming favorite to secure the Republican nomination, leaving the Democratic race unsettled.

“The nominating battle between Senator Clinton and Senator Obama is likely going to continue” well past Super Tuesday and “certainly through the primaries of March 4,” Howard Wolfson, Clinton’s communication director, said yesterday.

After Super Tuesday, the Republicans and Democrats will compete in primary contests in states and the District of Columbia into June. Democrats hold their nominating convention in August and Republicans have theirs in September.

Bellwether

Other states closing their polls at 8 p.m. include Missouri, which is closely contested in the Democratic race. On the Republican side, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, 52, is vying for support from social conservatives. Missouri, long a bellwether in presidential politics, has the racial and economic diversity to make it a microcosm of the country.

Huckabee is also considered a factor in the primary in Tennessee, where polls close at 8 p.m.

Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, campaigned in Tennessee in the past week and she had a substantial led in recent polls. A half hour later, the voting ends in former President Bill Clinton’s home state of Arkansas, where his wife has a broad network of support.

Also closing at 8 p.m. will be Illinois, Obama’s home state, followed an hour later by New York. Obama, 46, and Clinton, 60, have secure bases at home. The telling sign will be who wins the home state by a larger margin.

McCain is favored in New York and Illinois as well as in Arizona, a state he has represented in the Senate for more than two decades. In Arizona, where polls close at 9 p.m. Eastern time, the Democratic race is close.

California Prize

At 11 p.m. New York time, all eyes will be on California, the most populous state and the biggest prize on Super Tuesday, with 370 delegates awarded in the Democratic race and 170 in the Republican contest. McCain has won the endorsement of the state’s governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Obama has been chipping away at Clinton’s margin in California, though Clinton may have captured a greater proportion of voters who cast their ballots early. California allows voting weeks in advance.

The nine caucus states will trickle in through the night, with Alaska voters dispersing by 1:30 a.m.

Obama has invested time and money in caucus states such as North Dakota, New Mexico, Alaska, Kansas, Minnesota, and Idaho.

Winner Take All

On the Republican side, former Governor Romney is banking on holding his home state of Massachusetts. McCain is favored in Connecticut and New Jersey, states that are important because the winner takes all the nominating-convention delegates. Given that system in those states and in New York, McCain has said the Republican contest may be settled today.

Under Republican rules, it takes 1,191 delegates to secure the party’s nomination. McCain has a chance to win a large number of delegates because more than 1,000 are at stake today.

“We might not have to wait until California to know whether McCain is having a good night,” said Scott Keeter, director of survey research for the Pew Research Center in Washington.

Democrats divide the delegates by congressional district, making a sweep more difficult. Most experts predict that Clinton and Obama will come close to splitting the 1,681 delegates up for grabs in 22 states today. Under the Democrats’ system, a candidate can lose a state’s popular vote and still accrue large numbers of delegates; 2,025 are needed for nomination.