The Politico lists five things to look for when the returns come in from the Keystone State tonight:
Check for turnout at 1 p.m. By this point Tuesday, the campaigns should have a good sense of what kind of outcome to expect. They will look first to Philadelphia, where a crush of voters early in the day will bode well for Obama and badly for Clinton since it will signal that he could win the big margin he needs to take out of the city.
So far, no indications of turnout yet. Not even from Drudge.
Follow the undecideds. For weeks, the campaigns have been trying to convince a stubborn group of undecided voters – an average of nine percent in polls released Monday – to make up their minds.
Given that recent trends have shown Hillary solidifying her lead, the conventional wisdom is that undecideds will break with the trend toward her.
Watch these towns and neighborhoods. While the campaigns are reluctant to disclose the places they will be looking at, here are some key precincts, wards and towns that unaffiliated Pennsylvania political strategists say they will be monitoring.
Obama should be aiming for at least 55 percent turnout in African American wards in Philadelphia, 60 percent in the upscale white neighborhoods of Center City Philadelphia, and 70 percent in Lower Merion, the wealthy Philadelphia suburb with large numbers of highly educated and increasingly liberal voters.
Clinton meanwhile, needs strong turnout in working class areas and around Pittsburgh.
Key counties to keep an eye on. Political analysts point to the 2002 Democratic gubernatorial primary between Ed Rendell and Bob Casey Jr. as the closest comparison to the match up between Obama and Clinton.
(…)
Rendell beat Casey by winning only 10 counties out of 67 in the state. The governor won Philadelphia by 160,000 votes, and swept the four suburban counties—Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery—with 80-90 percent of the vote. He carried the Lehigh Valley, which includes Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton, by a 2-to-1 margin. He edged out Casey in Penn State’s Centre County by five points.
Casey won the other major population centers in Southwest and Central Pennsylvania, but not by enough to offset Rendell’s advantage in the populous Southeast.
It seems unlikely that Obama would be able to duplicate Rendell’s feat today, but if he does, he would put the final nail in the coffin of the Clinton campaign.
So, happy return watching !
