CNN news 2012-03-09 加文本

cnn news 2012-03-09

CARL AZUZ, HOST, cnn STUDENT NEWS: Hi, I`m Carl Azuz, and today elections take center stage in cnn Student News, but we`re not just talking about the ones in the United States, although that is our first story.

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AZUZ: Super Tuesday, the single biggest day on the presidential primary calendar, 419 delegates being awarded, based on the results of primaries and caucuses in 10 states.

AZUZ (voice-over): Let`s run through the list: Georgia, Ohio and Tennessee had the most delegates up for grabs. Voters also went to the polls in Virginia, Vermont, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Idaho and out in Alaska as well.

Here`s what we knew when we produced this program last night: cnn projected that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich would win his home state of Georgia. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney was the projected winner in his home state of Massachusetts, and also in Virginia and Vermont. And cnn projected that former Senator Rick Santorum would win in Tennessee.

The contests in some other states, like Ohio, were too close to call, and others like Alaska were still coming in late last night. None of those states had a winner-take-all contest. Candidates will be awarded delegates, based on how many votes they got in each state. Though the results of yesterday`s primaries and caucuses could help determine how the race for the Republican Party`s nomination will end up.

You can get the latest updates and the full results from Super Tuesday on our home page. Go to the "Spotlight" section and click on the cnn Election Center link.

AZUZ: The economy, especially the unemployment rate, is one of the biggest issues in this year`s presidential campaign. A lot of Americans have said it`ll have an impact on how they vote. So we wanted to look at the economic situation in the 10 states holding contests on Super Tuesday. Christine Romans has that breakdown for us.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, HOST, "YOUR BOTTOM LINE": It`s two issues that affect voters most: where you live and how you pay the bills. Let`s start with jobs. In six of the 10 Super Tuesday states, the unemployment rate is lower today than when the president took office. Alaska, Massachusetts -- look at North Dakota, 3.3 percent.

Ohio, Tennessee, and Vermont, now Ohio, the big battleground state, the rate is down from when the president took office, down from its high of last year. But still an uncomfortable 7.9 percent to half a million people there are still out of work.

Tennessee, the rate is above the national average -- 8.5 percent there. Here in Georgia, Ohio, Oklahoma, Virginia, candidates can rightfully say that the jobless rate has risen since Obama stepped into the White House.

In Newt Gingrich`s home state of Georgia, 9.4 percent was the unemployment rate at the end of last year. And in 2010, the state`s jobless rate spiked to an all-time high of 10.5 percent. Idaho, Oklahoma, and Virginia also have higher rates than when the president took office, but in Oklahoma and Virginia, you got 6.3 percent and 6.1 percent. That`s better than the national average.

I want to take a look now at housing because if you`re underwater, it means you owe more on the home than the home is worth, Super Tuesday states have some of the highest rates of underwater mortgages in the country.

I mean, take a look at Georgia -- 33 percent of homeowners in Georgia have a house that`s underwater. In Idaho, it`s one in four. In Virginia, it`s 23 percent. This is according to Core Logic. And the national rate is 22 percent.

And look at Ohio. That battleground Ohio, 24 percent of people who have home loans owe more on the house than the house is worth. An interesting thing about Ohio, it`s one of the reasons why Ohio is almost a proxy really for what the GOP nominee faces in November. Do voters focus on how bad things got? Or how they`re very slowly, slowly improving? Christine Romans, cnn, New York.