McCain's tell-tale numbers

McCain's tell-tale numbers

Exit polls from Tuesday's Potomac primaries show where Sen. John McCain's general election strengths and weaknesses lie in facing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton or Sen. Barack Obama in November.

The exit polls asked primary voters if they would be satisfied with each candidate as the nominee. About 75 percent of Republican voters in Maryland and Virginia said they would be satisfied with McCain, and 81 percent of Democratic voters said they would be satisfied with Obama.

Coupled with the huge turnout he is inspiring, those numbers suggest that Obama could be looking at historic levels of support and McCain could be looking at a difficult campaign.

The good news for him is that Democrats are far less happy with Clinton. Only 64 percent of Virginia voters and 68 percent of Maryland voters would be happy with her, the exit polls found.

Still, Clinton received more than 300,000 votes in Virginia in a losing effort while McCain collected less than 250,000 votes in his winning effort, which means the enthusiasm gap might be too much for any Republican to overcome this year.

— Stephen Dinan, national political reporter, The Washington Times

Posted on February 13, 2008 8:30 AM