February 5, 2008 may go down in political history as the day Rush Limbaugh lost his grip on Republican voters – and the day Ann Coulter may have lost her grip altogether.

Despite a concerted effort by the conservative chattering class to tar Sen. John McCain as a “liberal” or a “phony Republican,” and Fmr. Gov. Mike Huckabee as a “spoiler” who would “hand the nomination to McCain” by not dropping out, voters were not persuaded to support Mitt Romney to save the party from perdition.

Sen. John McCain won nine of the 21 states holding primaries and caucuses – and perhaps more delegates (they’re still doing the math as of this writing) – to Romney’s seven states and Huckabee’s five states.

In addition to his home state of AZ, McCain won the lion’s share of delegates in CA, IL and OK, which are apportioned by congressional district – as well as delegates in several “winner take all” states, such as MO, NY, NJ, CT and DE. In the Northeastern states, McCain clearly benefitted from having inherited Rudy Giuliani’s moderate base, and across the board he won the votes of those who believe the Iraq war or terrorism are the most critical issues facing the U.S.

But winning CA - the nation’s most populous state – and MO – an important swing state - by huge margins over Romney cements McCain’s front-runner status.

Huckabee swept the South, winning his home state of AR, AL and GA (both winner take all states), TN and WV. Roughly one in two voters in AL, GA and TN are evangelicals or Christian conservatives, and Huckabee got 40 percent of their votes.  Romney ran third in the Southern states, which undercuts his claim that he is the conservative alternative to McCain. As McCain advisor Steve Schmidt put it, “Mitt had a very bad night. You can't say you're 'Mr. Conservative' and not win the South.”

WV, in particular, proved that a vote for McCain or Huckabee is a vote against Romney: At the state Republican convention, Romney beat Huckabee on the first ballot but failed to get a majority (41 percent to 33 percent). Huckabee won the state with a boost from the McCain delegates (15 percent) who voted for him on the second ballot.

More bad news for Romney: As in FL, McCain was the top choice of the 40 percent of Super Duper Tuesday voters who cited the economy as the nation’s Number One issue. While Romney did better than McCain in AZ and CA amongst voters who cited illegal immigration as the most pressing issue on their minds, McCain won both states handily.

For his part, Romney won his home state of MA, as well as AK, CO, MT and UT (states with significant Mormon populations), MN (a swing state) and ND. Romney had the advantage of having a near-lock on the Mormon vote (9 out of 10 votes in UT, for instance) in these states – plus unusually strong support for Rep. Ron Paul (yes, he’s still in the race) in AK (17 percent), MN (16 percent), MT (25 percent) and ND (21 percent).

Outside the South, Romney won a larger share of the conservative vote than McCain – even in AZ - and Huckabee, with much of this support coming from “late-deciders,” suggesting that the relentless pounding McCain got from Limbaugh and other conservative pundits had some effect amongst hard-core conservatives – but did not sway evangelicals and Christian conservatives who were inclined to support Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister, or moderates who don’t rely on Limbaugh to tell them how to vote.  

Early exit poll data also shows that McCain is regarded as the candidate who is most electable, most experienced, most “authentic” and most qualified to be commander in chief.

A Fight To The Death For Dems

Barack Obama won more than half of the 22 Super Duper Tuesday states (12 to Hillary Clinton’s  8) – but Hillary’s wins came from such delegate-rich states as her adopted home state of NY, as well as CA, MA and NJ. Overall, 49 percent of voters supported Hillary, 46 percent supported Obama.

Since none of the contests are winner take all, the split decision gives neither Dem candidate true front-runner status, which means that they must continue to battle over every delegate in primaries and caucuses that will be held on February 9^th (LA and NE), 10^th (ME), 12^th (Washington, D.C., MD and VA) and 19^th (HI, WA and WI) – and TX and OH on March 4^th.

Clinton also won her “other” home state of AR, as well as AZ (a swing state in 2000), OK and TN. In addition to his home state of IL (and Hillary’s childhood home), Obama won the swing states CO and MN (the races in MO and NM are still too close to call as of this writing), as well as AL, DE, GA and KS.

As expected, Hillary overwhelmingly won the Hispanic vote – 60 percent overall – and Obama did even better among black voters – 82 percent overall. But Obama also did surprisingly well in states with few black voters, winning AK, CT, ID, ND and UT.

Class, gender and generation also played a role in the results, with Hillary winning blue collar whites in MA - despite Obama having been endorsed by the state’s governor and both senators -  and Obama winning the “latte liberal” and the youth vote in CT, home of Hillary’s alma mater, Yale.

Except in NY, Obama got more of the male vote than Hillary – but since 6 in 10 Dem voters were women, these votes did not impact the outcome in any states. The reverse was true of the female vote, with Hillary beating Obama by double-digit margins in OK (30 points), NY (26 points), MA (17 points) and NJ (10 points).

Obama won 56 percent of voters under 30 years of age, while Clinton was supported by 56 percent of those 60 years of age and older.