The PA primary (MULTIPLE UPDATES)

**This post will stay on top for the remainder of the evening and will be updated often. The newest updates will appear at the top of the post.**

Update 13 – 10:55 PM: Hillary’s lead is now at 10%, with 80% reporting. Obama is still lying about McCain’s economy comments (see the current links in the Obama Files section on the right side of the page for the reality of what McCain said and how Obama is lying about them, and his ties to lobbyists). I can’t watch anymore of his speech – it’ll probably go on for another 30 minutes anyway, knowing him. Good night.

Update 12 – 10:42 PM: Obama will be speaking shortly (from Evansville, IN). Will be interesting to see how he spins his loss.

Update 11 – 10:13 PM: She’s getting ready to give her victory speech. Bubba is in the house.

Update 10 – 9:54 PM: At this stage in the game with 45% reporting, Clinton is ahead by about 80K votes and 8%. FYI, Obama outspent Clinton in PA by 3-1.

Update 9 – 9:00 PM: Michael Barone is on Fox saying that PA may turn into another Ohio, which would mean that Hillary may have a double digit percentage win under her belt tonight.

Update 8 – 8:45 PM: Fox is calling PA for Hillary. No surprise there. The margins, though, will be key.

Update 7 – 8:36 PM: Numbers are finally coming in.

Update 6 – 8:30 PM: Strange – no vote counts are rolling in yet. In the meantime, we all missed out on Obama’s leftover Scranton, PA waffle and sausage link, which was up for bid on E-bay earlier today.

Update 5 – 8:02 PM: Polls are now closed. Per Fox, Clinton “dominating” among her core groups – women, seniors, union househoulds. BO is winning big with the black vote, young voters, urbanites, college grads. “Independents” split between the two.

Update 4 – 7:55 PM: Polls close in five minutes. Remember to bookmark this link to see voting numbers as they come in.

FL/MI news via the Hotline Blog: “Howard Dean tells Air America’s David Bender today that there will be a rules committee meeting later this spring and that the fates of the Florida and Michigan delegates will be decided by June.”

Update 3 – 7:38 PM: Shep Smith is reporting that one of the campaigns is asking for certain polling places to remain open beyond the 8pm close.

Ok – they’re reporting on it now. It wasn’t a request from either campaign. The group “My Vote One” wanted to have polls in a certain county (didn’t catch the county) because there were supposedly problems with the voting machines but they were denied.

Update 2 – 7:30 PM: Bill Clinton – unmedicated.

Polls close in half an hour.

Update 1 – 7:09 PM: Polls close in a little less than an hour in PA. Record turnout (over 50% is being predicted. Per Fox, the exits show Hillary doing well among voters she normally does well with. Geraghty’s first round of exit numbers suggest a possible Obama stunner, but Drudge has different numbers suggesting otherwise. Stay tuned …

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It’s been six weeks since the last primary, which has given both Democrat candidates plenty of time to plead their case in Pennsylvania, home to 188 delegates (29 of them supers). The total delegate count as it stands now – as per RCP, including supers, shows Barack Obama with 1,650 and Hillary Clinton with 1,508.

The junior Senator from New York has always lead in the polls in PA, at one point as high as 33 points (that was in October) but Obama’s money advantage has helped him to move within single digits of her in some polls in the closing days of campaigning in PA, although the final Zogby numbers going into today’s primary show her with a 10 point lead over BO.

Mrs. Clinton (who has taken to sounding rather hawkish lately) is expected to win in PA today (and Obama is already doing the “loss as a victory” spin) – but the big question is by how much. This could turn into another Ohio, which looked like it was going to be close judging by the single digit margins in the polling in the final couple of weeks but ended up being a double digit win for her. Or, Barack Obama could suprise everyone and overcome his “bitter” remarks he made to a group of m/billionaires in SF a couple of weeks ago and his poor debate performance last week to keep this primary to within 5 percentage points. As we’ve seen time and time again this campaign season, anything can happen.

I watched some of the talking heads on Fox and Friends this morning, and they were saying that Hillary needed to win by a double digit percentage tonight to be able to justify staying in the race. Of course, even if she doesn’t, it won’t matter as she’s vowed to stay in it until the convention, and says she will continue to make her case to seat the Florida and Michigan delegates.

The polls in PA opened at 7 this morning, and will close at 8pm ET. If you’re a PA voter, Dem or Republican, please weigh in in the comments with how your experience was voting today, what you saw, etc. I’ll update this post regularly this afternoon/evening with new news as I hear/read it. Refresh this page often after the polls close for updates on the vote numbers as they come in.