Tonight, the national spotlight will shine on the winners of Maryland's presidential primary. If pre-election polls are accurate, the victors could be declared moments after the polls close at 8 p.m.
Otherwise, surprises may be in store.
Campaign strategists and politicians in both parties will be sifting through vote totals and exit-poll data throughout the evening, regardless of who wins, even as the candidates move on to other states. Neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton is expected to be anywhere near the shores of the Chesapeake or banks of the Potomac to declare victory tonight.
Obama plans to be campaigning in Wisconsin, scene of next Tuesday's biggest primary. Clinton will be in Texas, which votes March 4.
Here's how they and their advisers will be looking at the returns, regardless of where they are, and what's at stake in today's balloting:
UPSETS. If the predictions of the politicians and pollsters are on target, Obama will sweep Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia by comfortable margins.
But what if they're not?
Clinton's best chance to steal a victory would seem to be in Virginia, which has a smaller portion of African-Americans - Obama's best group in previous contests -and more rural voters than Maryland. Clinton and her husband put last-minute efforts into that state yesterday, hoping to turn the tide her way. It's the largest primary prize, with the most delegates at stake.
Polls in Virginia close at 7, so a winner could be declared while Marylanders are still voting.
REPUBLICANS. Remember the Republicans? Their race was supposed to have ended after Mitt Romney dropped out last week. John McCain, at that point, appeared to have gained a virtual lock on the nomination.
Apparently, word that the race was over never reached Mike Huckabee. He defeated McCain in Louisiana and Kansas on Saturday and is contesting a narrow McCain win in Washington state.
Today's relatively moderate Republican primary in Maryland may be out of reach for Huckabee. If he steals a state from McCain, it will probably be Virginia. Evangelical Christians, home-schooling advocates and other social conservatives abound in the Old Dominion, and Huckabee has been airing commercials there.
McCain took the weekend off, but in Annapolis yesterday he insisted, "We're doing fine."
Losing anywhere today could be more than an embarrassment for the front-runner. McCain would be forced to intensify his efforts to reassure very conservative Republicans that he's on their side.
That's probably not what he'd prefer to be doing now. The presidency will likely go in November to the candidate who does the best job of capturing centrist independent voters, and a swing to the right would knock McCain off that course.
If McCain sweeps today's winner-take-all Republican primaries, on the other hand, it would put new pressure on Huckabee to step aside. At that point, Huckabee would have to win nearly every delegate in all of the remaining contests to become the nominee, a practical impossibility.
However, Huckabee says he won't quit until McCain gets enough delegates to clinch the nomination. That might not happen until April, regardless of who wins today.
MOMENTUM. "I'm still ahead in the popular vote and in delegates," Clinton declared in White Marsh yesterday.
The deadlocked Democratic race is almost certain to get even tighter tonight, though. Obama is poised to run his post-Super Tuesday winning streak to eight in a row. Even if he were to win two out of three contests today, he's still likely to pick up delegates.
More than bragging rights are at stake.
There is a chance that Obama can overtake Clinton in the overall delegate count, including superdelegates. He's won far more than Clinton over the past month. He had pulled to within 28 delegates of Clinton, heading into today's primaries, according to a tally by the Associated Press. Other news organizations showed the delegate race even closer.
If Obama piles up enough delegates today, "he will for the first time be seen as the frontrunner in this race," said Donna Brazile, who managed Al Gore's 2000 campaign and is neutral this year. That advantage may turn out to be only temporary, she cautioned, since Clinton could bounce back by taking at least two of the next three big primary states - Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania.
Paul Maslin, a Democratic pollster in Wisconsin, said Obama's "money advantage is only going to get stronger, and that may have a tremendous impact" in the upcoming big-state contests, where Obama is launching a "sustained, big-time heavy media" campaign that Clinton probably can't match. Obama announced yesterday that he will begin airing commercials today in Ohio and Texas, which vote March 4, and he is already on the air in Wisconsin.
Clinton "has to stop him fast," said Maslin. Otherwise, "his money and momentum and enthusiasm may simply overwhelm her. She has to score some big victories." The Democratic race appears to be "slowly and inexorably moving his way," and "Clinton needs some sort of an event, some sort of a change, to really turn it - or else."
paul.west@baltsun.com