Presidential Candidates Clinton, Obama, McCain Largest Winners on Super Tuesday; Clinton Leads on Health Care

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) on Tuesday won Democratic presidential primaries in Arkansas, Arizona, California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma and Tennessee, and Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) won Democratic primaries and caucuses in Alabama, Alaska, Connecticut, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota, North Dakota and Utah, the Washington Post reports. The winner of the New Mexico primary remains undetermined (Balz/Kornblut, Washington Post, 2/6).

Among Republican candidates, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) won primaries in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey, New York and Oklahoma. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee won the primaries in Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee and West Virginia, and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney won the primaries and caucuses in Alaska, Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota and Utah (Cooper, New York Times, 2/6).

According to exit polls, among three issues, 19% of Democratic voters cited health care as their most important concern in the election, compared with 48% who cited the economy and 29% who cited the war in Iraq. Clinton received support from more than half of Democratic voters who cited health care and the economy as their most important issue. Among Republican voters, the polls found that, among four issues, 39% cited the economy as their most important concern in the election, compared with 23% who cited immigration, 19% who cited the war in Iraq and 15% who cited terrorism. McCain received support from 42% of Republican voters who cited the economy as their most important issue (AP/Miami Herald, 2/6).

The exit polls, conducted by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International, included interviews with voters in 431 precincts in 16 states, including 17,454 Democratic primary voters and 11,206 Republican primary voters. These polls had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus one percentage point for each party. Also included in the results were telephone interviews with 1,005 Democrats and 813 Republicans in Arizona, California and Tennessee to measure views of early and absentee voters (Fram, AP/Miami Herald, 2/6).

MSNBC's "Tucker" on Monday included a discussion with Mort Zuckerman, editor-in-chief of U.S. News & World Report, and Pat Buchanan, MSNBC political consultant, about Clinton's health care plan and health insurance mandates (Carlson, "Tucker," MSNBC, 2/4). Video of the segment is available online.