Super Tuesday Voters Go To The Polls

Mike Huckabee scored the first win on Super Tuesday today, with a narrow win over Mitt Romney at West Virginia's Republican convention. The win nets him 18 delegates.

CBS News reports that Huckabee won on the second ballot at the convention with 52 percent of the votes cast. CBS News chief political consultant Marc Ambinder reports that John McCain called many of his representatives in West Virginia and asked them to vote for Huckabee, in order to thwart Romney on the second ballot.

The vote went to a second ballot after the first round didn't result in a majority for any of the four candidates: Huckabee, McCain, Romney and Ron Paul. Read more in CBSNews.com's From The Road Blog.

Each party is holding contests in more than 20 states today, including some of the most populous, such as California and New York. At stake are about half the delegates who will choose a nominee at party conventions in August and September.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Rodham Clinton, her lead eroded by a strong challenge from Barack Obama, looked to re-establish herself as the clear Democratic frontrunner.

For Republicans, McCain hoped to bury rival Romney's presidential hopes on the biggest primary day in U.S. history.

"We have primaries from coast to coast. No one has ever done this including our voters," Clinton told CBS News' The Early Show. "I really want to encourage people, if you're in one of those Super Tuesday states, to come out and help pick a president."

Clinton, the New York senator and wife of former President Bill Clinton, was long seen as the inevitable Democratic candidate with double-digit leads in the polls just weeks ago. Her supporters had expected that she would lock up the nomination with big wins on Super Tuesday.

But Obama, a first-term Illinois senator campaigning on a theme of hope and change, has narrowed her lead to little or nothing in the latest national and individual state polls.

Neither candidate was expected to emerge from Super Tuesday as the presumptive nominee. Clinton and Obama each hoped to win the majority of delegates at stake and claim front-runner status heading into the next rounds of state primaries and caucuses.

"We're all kind of guessing about what it's all going to mean because it's never happened before," Clinton said. "There's a lot we're going to find out about how all this works."

One thing is certain, Obama said: "No matter what happens I think we'll see a split decision."

Obama told The Early Show that he'd especially love to win in Illinois.

"That's where I live. Those are the folks who know me best and hopefully we'll do just fine there."

With so many states casting votes, Democrats were spending unprecedented amounts of money on television advertising. Clinton and Obama each poured more than $1 million a day into TV ads in the last week alone.

Total spending this primary season for both parties is now well over half a billion dollars, far more than ever before, reports CBS News correspondent Chip Reid.

The electoral territory was vast and so were the stakes. Romney, his Republican bid on the line, logged more than 5,000 miles in a 37-hour coast-to-coast dash as he tried to block McCain from wrapping up the nomination. McCain led by double digits in national polls, but some surveys showed Romney gaining ground in delegate-rich California.

Romney sought until the end to exploit conservatives' mistrust of McCain, a veteran Arizona senator who opposed President George W. Bush's tax cuts when they were introduced, advocated a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants favors mandates to slow global warming and led campaign finance reforms that activists say trampled on their free speech rights.

"I'd like as many delegates as I can get," Romney told The Early Show. "I think what began to happen in California over the weekend was really encouraging. I think you had a lot of conservative voices on talk radio and print voices saying, 'We've got to have a
conservative, and Mitt Romney's the guy.'"

McCain struck back Monday with a television ad that showed Romney in a 1994 Senate campaign debate against Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, saying he was "an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush. I'm not trying to return to Reagan-Bush."

"Well, I'm sure we'll do very well throughout the country, and California will be tough, but I'm hopeful," McCain told The Early Show. "I'm happy with where we are."

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister, focused on the South, where he enjoys support from Christian conservatives.

McCain could finish first in several Southern and border states - Alabama, Georgia, Oklahoma and Missouri - with Huckabee and Romney splitting the conservative vote.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's decision to quit the race and endorse McCain after Florida's primary has given the Arizona senator a boost in Northeastern states where there are many moderate Republicans.

McCain, a former Vietnam prisoner-of-war who has campaigned on his national security experience, would be a formidable rival for either Obama or Clinton because of his appeal to independents. "I can lead this nation and motivate all Americans to serve a cause greater than their self-interest," he said Monday.

The contests in two dozen states Tuesday were delivering 1,023 Republican and 1,681 Democratic delegates. The number needed to win the nomination: 1,191 Republican and 2,025 Democratic. So far, the AP puts Clinton's delegate tally at 261 while Obama has 196. Among Republicans, McCain has 102 delegates while Romney has 93.

Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards' departure after South Carolina's primary simplified the math but little else on the Democratic side.

Since winning that state, Obama has collected a succession of marquee endorsements - including several members of the Kennedy family - and pulled into a statistical tie with Clinton in a national poll and in California, Tuesday's biggest prize with 370 Democratic delegates.

He's also racked up endorsements from many of Hollywood's brightest stars.

"I don't think voters pay that much attention to celebrity endorsements, Obama told The Early Show."I think what they're concerned about is who can listen to the concerns of voters and then translate that into actual programs and policies that help people achieve their dreams."

The two were campaigning for history as well - Clinton seeking to become the first female president, Obama the first black commander-in-chief.

Little separates them on most issues, including universal health coverage, ending U.S. military involvement in Iraq and raising taxes on the rich. Instead, the campaign has turned on her experience and his vision of change.

Party rules were stacked against a Tuesday knockout for Democrats. All their 22 primaries and caucuses were awarding delegates proportionally, so coming in a strong second counted. In the Republican field, nine of the 21 contests offered all the delegates to the winner.

Among the most closely watched races: