First with Montana. For Obama, he’s going to need to bring up big margins in Missoula county, as well as Helena and billings, the population centers. Senator Clinton will need to rack up HUGE margins in the rural parts of the state. There are several similarities between this race, and the primary between former Montana auditor John Morrison and former state senate president (and current senator) Jon tester. In 2006 it was a primary battle between the two, and Morrison was considered the more moderate, establishment candidate, whereas tester was the upstart populist. Despite being neck and neck in the polls for most of the campaign, tester won a resounding victory in the primary due to huge Missoula margins. There are differences of course too. The most important one being that Morrison had been struggling with accusations of infidelity. Despite being considered the weaker candidate in the general election, Jon tester defeated Morrison 61-35 and defeated corrupt republican incumbent Conrad “Connie” burns (who, according to the Kaimin, the UM newspaper, the students of UM trusted less than Mr. Burns of the Simpsons) by a few thousand votes. I suspect Obama will win with about 55% of the vote.

South Dakota will be a different story. It is a closed primary, in a more conservative state, with more rural areas. Each candidate has their edge. Obama has institutional support, with senator Daschle, Johnson, and rep Herseth Sandlin all supporting Obama. He will also most likely win the population centers of clay county, possibly union county, and the city of Sioux falls. It will be the margins that matter. Clinton can win by running up huge margins in rural areas, the same as Montana. Over the past few days, both senators Obama and Clinton have been criss-crossing the state as well as the former president Clinton and their daughter. Obama has been to Aberdeen and Mitchell, whereas president Clinton was recently in vermillion.

A recent poll shows that Clinton is winning with 2/3’s of the vote, but the pollster ARG is ranked 26^th worst out of the 41 pollster of this season. Neither campaign believes these numbers, so we shall see. Another interesting event will be if Hyperion passes the vote in union county and by how much if it does. A surge of young voters for Obama could doom it, but with school out, I doubt it, sadly. Either way it appears that Obama, only six delegates away from the nomination will be declaring victory tonight, while Hillary will turn up the Zeppelin and dethklok and prey it shouts out the fat lady singing. I’ll be writing more tonight, see ya then