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Huckabee, Obama Celebrate Wins In Georgia

Monday, February 4, 2008 – updated: 6:39 pm EST February 7, 2008

Both Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee can celebrate their Super Tuesday wins in Georgia today, but they still trail in their bids to win their party's nomination.

Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor and Baptist minister, edged out Arizona Senator John McCain and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney for the GOP victory. Huckabee had about 34 percent of the vote in a state with a base of religious voters critical to his campaign.

Six in ten GOP voters were white evangelicals and born-again Christians. Huckabee won four in ten of their votes, according to surveys of voters as they left the polls.

With 99 percent of the votes counted Huckabee had 34 percent to McCain's 32 percent and Romney's 30 percent.

Obama got nearly 90 percent of the black voters who comprised about half of the Democratic primary vote. But his support in the state transcended skin color and age. He also won younger voters and performed surprisingly well with white male voters.

Clinton did win among white women and among voters older than 65. But Obama wound up with about 66 percent of the vote, compared to Clinton's 31 percent.

Blacks comprise about half of the Democratic primary vote in Georgia and surveys of people as they left polling places showed they lined up overwhelmingly behind Obama, an Illinois senator seeking to become the nation's first black president.

"Obama is just better because he makes people, like myself, get up and want to do something positive," said Felix Omigie, a 42-year-old truck driver from Riverdale. "I can see that he is trying to tap more into the younger generation. He can relate to them."

Obama had cultivated black support in the state, speaking from the pulpit of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s church the day before the federal holiday honoring the slain civil right leader's birthday. But Clinton made him work for the win. The former first lady had the backing of prominent black leaders such as U.S. Rep. John Lewis, a civil rights hero, and former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young.

Many voters in Georgia said Tuesday they were moved by Obama's message more than his skin color.

"I didn't want to vote for Obama just because he was black," said Jacqueline Jenkins, a 42-year-old administrative assistant and part-time college student who voted outside Albany. "I didn't want to vote for Hillary just because she's a woman. I think both bring a lot to the table. I just think Obama would be a better choice."

Pollsters Predicted Huckabee Could Be A Shocker

Pollsters said Tuesday evening Georgia Republican voters were impossible to pin down.

"This is the first time in the history of this company that I cannot tell you with any degree that I believe my poll is going to be on the mark," said InsiderAdvantage CEO Matt Towery of the Southern Political Report early Tuesday evening.

Towery said his company has polled thousands of people in Georgia -- the most ever -- and he still cannot get a sense of just who will come out on top in the Republican race.

Huckabee Says He Won't Drop Out Of Race

Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee said Tuesday he would press on with his White House candidacy, emboldened by wins in the South.

"The one way you can't win a race is to quit it, and until somebody beats me, I'm going to answer the bell for every round of this fight," the former Arkansas governor said in an AP interview from Little Rock.

Huckabee beat rivals John McCain and Mitt Romney in West Virginia, Alabama and his home state, and early returns showed him leading in a few more Super Tuesday states. He said he would emerge from the virtual national primary contests as the alternative to McCain, the Arizona senator and Republican front-runner.

"I've got to say that Mitt Romney was right about one thing -- this is a two-man race. He was just wrong about who the other man in the race was. It's me, not him," Huckabee said.

Huckabee suggested that only he and McCain would be left standing after 21 states held primaries and caucuses on Tuesday but stopped short of saying Romney should drop out. However, he said his supporters, many of them fellow Christian evangelicals, sent a strong message to Romney, who has been casting himself as the strongest conservative in the race.

"The conservatives are in the South, and the conservative base of the Republican party, I'm winning it. And there's just no way to argue that," Huckabee said. "Romney had to be able to show that he was really pulling those conservative votes, and he's not."

Preliminary exit polling from 16 states showed that white, born again, evangelical Christians split across the three leading Republican candidates, with one-third supporting Huckabee and the rest evenly divided between McCain and Romney.

Some Problems At the Polls Reported

Problems were reported at precincts in DeKalb, Fulton and Cobb Counties, according to Clare Schexnyder, spokeswoman for Georgia Election Protection.

Waits up to two hours were reported at some polling places.

State officials said staffers worked to fix "isolated" problems. A campaign watchdog group said some computers being used to verify voter identifications as part of a new state law crashed earlier in the day.

The Secretary of State's office said it dispatched staff and poll monitors to precincts that reported problems.

At a precinct at one Atlanta residential building, voting was delayed when only one of five voting booths were working and election workers had to hand out 75 paper ballots.

There are complaints of murky campaign tactics as well. Obama's campaign said it is investigating complaints that elderly people in Atlanta got calls offering to allow them to vote by phone, which is not permitted.

Long Waits Reported At Some Polling Places

Many voters called WSB-TV Channel 2 to report waiting up to two hours to vote. The bottlenecks appeared to be at the machines used to check voter IDs, not the voting machines themselves. This is the first statewide election requiring voters to show a picture ID.

"I was not allowed to vote and was told after I had waited in line for 40 minutes," wrote one would-be vote on a forum at wsbtv.com. I was told I needed to vote at the polling place that was located by a home where I lived 2 years ago. It was extremely frustrating, and I left in tears. To top it all off, as I was leaving, the lady asked me if I wanted a sticker!"

TELL US: How Did Your Voting Go?

Polling places across Georgia opened at 7 a.m. for Super Tuesday with early reports of long lines and some complaints of voting machine problems.

WSB-TV Channel 2 received several calls reporting faulty machines at a polling place at the Ousley United Methodist Church on Panola Road. That problem was solved when poll workers realized the machines were running off battery power because they were plugged into a dead outlet. Once the machines were plugged into an operating outlet they performed without any problems.

The polls at Oak Hill Precinct in Newton County opened 20 minutes late according to voter Kevin Hauck. He told WSB-TV Channel 2 Action News that "we had new machines but county did not provide new cards to unlock the machines."

Other callers claimed no voting machines were working at the polls at the Martin Luther King Jr. Towers at 525 Whitehall Terrace. Callers said they were being given paper ballots. By 8:35 those machines were back up and running.

In DeKalb County, callers claimed there were problems with voting machines at Flat Shoals Elementary School on Flat Shoals Road in Decatur. One caller said machines there would not allow voters to cast their ballots in the Democratic primary for president. By 10 a.m. poll workers reported their machines were functioning without any problems.

Long lines were reported by voters calling WSB-TV Channel 2 at Mary McLeod Bethune Middle School on Covington Highway, Saint James United Methodist Church on Peachtree Dunwoody Road and at Morningside Baptist Church.

Large Turnouts Across Metro Area

WSB-TV Channel 2 Action News reporter Tiffani Reynolds reported a brisk turnout at the polls at Calvary Baptist Church in Lilburn. Poll workers there reported more than 33 people voting in the first 30 minutes after the polls opened.

Voters were lined up outside Rainbow Elementary School in DeKalb County even before the polls opened, according to WSB-TV Channel 2 Action News chief photographer Tony Light. He reported more than 100 people in line in the pre-dawn darkness.

Alan Abramowitz, an Emory University political science professor, predicts that as many as 700,000 could vote in the GOP primary and 800,000 in the Democratic contest.

"I think it's going to be a huge turnout for a primary, because of the high level of interest in the race," he said. "It's competitive and I think African-American voters are very motivated to turn out."

The poll manager at E. Rivers Elementary School told WSB-TV Channel 2 reporter Lori Geary they've been swamped. He had 60 people in line before the doors even opened at 7 a.m. which he said is unusual for a presidential primary. He said if the long lines keep up, he's looking at more than a 40 percent turnout at his precinct.

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