Arkansas Goes for Favorite Son, Daughter

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WASHINGTON D.C. — MSNBC took just one minute after polls closed in Arkansas to call the state for Hillary Clinton on the Democratic side and Mike Huckabee on the Republican one.

Now would be a good time to remind folks that “winning” means different things in the Democratic and Republican races. On the Republican side, winning a state usually (but not always) means taking all of that state’s delegates. That’s because the Republican Party has embraced winner-take-all rules. On the Democratic side, however, winning a state means little because delegates are awarded proportionally at the district and state levels.

For more on this, see my primer on delegates and how they work.

And while we’re on the South, here’s a note on the evangelical vote nationwide. According to exit polls, 33 percent of evangelicals went for Huckabee, 31 percent went for Romney, and 30 percent went for McCain. No romp for Huckabee among that demographic today.