young voters

Landslide margins among black voters powered Barack Obama to his win Saturday in South Carolina's Democratic presidential primary, allowing him to overcome the telling edge Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Edwards had among whites. Blacks made up 55% of the voters in Saturday's contest, slightly more than turned out in the state's primary four years ago and by far their biggest share in any presidential contest so far this year. Obama won 78% of their votes, with black men and women supporting the Illinois senator by about that same margin, according to exit polls of Democratic voters conducted Saturday for the Associated Press and the networks.

The Advocate continues its coverage of four swing states this week with Florida, which went red in 2004 and infamously decided the 2000 election for George W. Bush. Today's story is the first of four pieces focusing on the Sunshine State's political dynamics, LGBT concerns, and how it all will play out on Election Day.

While Sarah Palin and Hurricane Gustav dominated talk on the abbreviated opening day of the 2008 Republican National Convention, a prominent Republican pollster confirmed that the recent change of language describing Proposition 8 was a positive one.

"We are going to lose this ... if we don't raise the money we need to compete on the airwaves," Geoff Kors, the executive director of Equality California and a member of the No on 8 executive committee, said during a conference call with LGBT reporters Tuesday afternoon. The call, dubbed an "Emergency LGBT Media Briefing," was held in response to a just-released poll conducted by Lake Research Partners, which shows the yes side leading by four percentage points. Currently, 47% of voters support the banning of gay marriage in California, while 43% would vote against a ban, according to the poll.