FINAL UPDATE: Hillary Clinton delivers her victory speech:
11:36 PM: Talking with Tom Brokaw, Chris Matthews lamented the fact that the pollsters and pundits got it all wrong. Brokaw suggested that the results today should cause the media to reevaluate its desire to “stampede the process,” and he cautioned the media to “wait for the voters to make their judgment”:
BROKAW: You know what I think we’re going to have to do?
MATTHEWS: Yes sir?
BROKAW: Wait for the voters to make their judgment.
MATTHEWS: Well what do we do then in the days before the ballot? We must stay home, I guess.
BROKAW: No, no we don’t stay home. There are reasons to analyze what they’re saying. We know from how the people voted today, what moved them to vote. You can take a look at that. There are a lot of issues that have not been fully explored during all this.
But we don’t have to get in the business of making judgments before the polls have closed. And trying to stampede in effect the process.
Look, I’m not just picking on us, it’s part of the culture in which we live these days. I think that the people out there are going to begin to make judgments about us if we don’t begin to temper that temptation to constantly try to get ahead of what the voters are deciding, in many cases, as we learned in New Hampshire when they went into the polling booth today or in the last three days. They were making decisions very late.
Watch it:
10:47 PM: CNN and Fox News have declared Clinton the winner.
10:42 PM: Bill Kristol: “It’s the tears. She pretended to cry. The women felt sorry for her. And she won.”
10:32 PM: MSNBC and the AP have called the Democratic race for Clinton. CNN and Fox News are not yet making a projection.
10:15 PM: With 62 percent of precincts reporting in the Democratic contest, Clinton has 39 percent of the vote and Obama has 36 percent.
10:10 PM: One of the analysts CNN has brought in to comment on the primaries tonight is former Christian Coalition director Ralph Reed. Reed gained notoriety for being a “close associate” of fallen lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and suffered an “embarrassing defeat in his effort to win the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor in Georgia” in 2006. Describing McCain’s win, Reed said that the senator “went fetal” after he “experienced the setbacks of the national level.” After confusion from the CNN host, Reed explained that McCain “went to the state that delivered for him eight years ago.”
10:03 PM: Fox pundit Nina Easton makes this observation: “[McCain] talked a lot about the war on terror and talked about national security. When you listen to Democratic candidates, that’s not an issue that you hear a lot about.” Watch it:
9:32 PM: ABC reports that Rudy Giuliani poured in great efforts to try to win New Hampshire, yet he is currently running fourth with 9 percent, just barely ahead of Ron Paul. Still, Joe Scarborough declared that “it looks right now like Rudy Giuliani wins as well as John McCain.” Watch it:
Atrios notes Howard Fineman said, “This is perfect for Giuliani…”
9:15 PM: With 34 percent of precincts reporting in the Democratic primary, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) is currently in the lead with 40 percent of the vote. Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) is in second with 36 percent.
8:50 PM: MSNBC reported that “more than half of the Republicans in our exit poll say they are either dissatisfied or downright angry with this President. Only 2 in 5 were satisfied and a very small percent were enthusiastic.”
8:49 PM: According to exit polls, “one-third of Democrats named the economy and Iraq as the top issues facing the country, followed by health care. … Republicans were split roughly evenly in naming the economy and Iraq as the nation’s top issue, with illegal immigration and terrorism close too.”
8:42 PM: CNN reports that Romney has already called McCain to congratulate him. According to the Huckabee campaign, Romney never called them after Iowa.
8:40 PM: Bill Kristol is quick to declare McCain’s victory was “because of the surge.”
David Petraeus deserves a lot of credit — most of it of course for improving the situation in Iraq, but I think he ended up being a great asset to John McCain because McCain was such a staunch supporter of Petraeus and the surge.
Watch it:
8:29 PM: New Hampshire’s registered independents are able to vote in either primary. Early exit poll data “indicated six in 10 opted for the Democratic contest.”
8:11 PM: Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC have declared Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) the winner of the GOP primary, with former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney in second.
8:01 PM: Polls have officially closed, and CNN has declared that former senator John Edwards will come in third in the Democratic race.
8:00 PM: On MSNBC’s Hardball, Rep. Tom DeLay said Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) “won’t fare well in the South” because he’s a “moderate.” “The moderates have had their day in Iowa and New Hampshire,” he said, which led to this exchange:
MATTHEWS: Well you say the word moderate with a rather unpleasant look on your face. What is a moderate in the Republican Party as you describe that term?
DELAY: Well that’s a person who likes to think a lot.
MATTHEWS: [Laughter] Is that bad news in your party? Too much thought?
Watch it:
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