At one point last month, Barack Obama enjoyed a 25-point lead over Hillary Clinton in North Carolina and was beginning to creep ahead of her in Indiana as well.
A few weeks and several Jeremiah Wright appearances later, Obama’s prospects have weakened considerably in those two states, which hold critical primaries on Tuesday.
Political analysts now predict the contests will not provide Obama a needed knockout blow to the Clinton campaign, much to the dismay of some Democrats who fear the protracted race is damaging their prospects for recapturing the White House.
Obama, whose delegate lead preserves his status as the likely Democratic nominee, remains strongly favored to win in North Carolina. His advantage is due in part to an electorate that is more than one-third black and includes a substantial number of middle- and upper-middle-income whites who live in the state’s college towns.
But Clinton has closed the gap in North Carolina since her nearly 10-point win in Pennsylvania on April 22. Averages posted by the Web site RealClearPolitics give Obama a 7-point advantage, down several points from just a week ago.
And Clinton, along with her daughter, Chelsea, and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, has been stumping hard there. Bill Clinton in particular has been working the small-town circuit, appearing in seven North Carolina towns on just one day last week, for instance.
Political analysts say Obama’s drop in the North Carolina polls is due in part to voters in these small towns who found his affiliation with the controversial Wright troubling.
Another factor Obama needs to worry about is the state’s early voting, which tends to attract more white voters than black, according to Duke University political science professor John Aldrich.
About 355,000 of the state’s 5.8 million registered Democratic voters have already cast ballots.
Experts are conflicted as to who will benefit more from the large early turnout.
“There’s been quite a bit of early voting here, thanks to some very well-organized efforts by the Obama campaign to turn out voters, particularly African-Americans,” said Kerry L. Haynie, who also teaches political science at Duke. “He may have stored away some votes before the Reverend Wright issue really hit.”
In Indiana, RealClearPolitics gives Clinton a 5.8-point advantage despite the state being next to Obama’s home state of Illinois.
“She has more of an advantage given the typical kind of demographic both have been capturing,” Indiana University professor Lawrence J. Hanks said.
