Hillary Clinton won Kentucky by a commanding margin Tuesday, but Barack Obama was expected to win in Oregon, securing a national majority of Democratic pledged delegates.
Obama was likely to end the night roughly 60 delegates shy of the 2,026 needed to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination. To celebrate, he returned to Iowa, the site of his first victory back in January, and marveled at what he called his “unlikely journey.”
“The skeptics predicted we wouldn’t get very far,” he reminded supporters in Des Moines, according to prepared remarks. “But the people of Iowa had a different idea.”
He added triumphantly, “We have returned to Iowa with a majority of delegates elected by the American people, and you have put us within reach of the Democratic nomination for president of the United States.”
But Clinton made clear she has no intention of leaving the race.
“I’m going to keep making our case until we have a nominee, whoever she may be,” she told a raucous rally in Louisville. “We continue to go toe-to-toe to this nomination.”
With 91 percent of precincts reporting, Clinton was beating Obama in Kentucky by a whopping margin of 65 to 30 percent.
Exit polls showed Clinton winning the support of 78 percent of senior citizens in Kentucky and 74 percent of voters earning less than $50,000 a year. She also won 73 percent of white women and 74 percent of whites with no college degree.
In an ominous sign for Obama, the exit polls showed that he will garner the support of only half of Clinton’s supporters if he secures the nomination. Another 32 percent of Clinton backers said they would support Republican John McCain in November, while 15 percent of these Kentuckians vowed to stay home.
While those numbers could spell trouble for Obama in November, they have not stopped him from pushing Clinton to the edge of elimination in the Democratic primary cycle. She was the heavy favorite as recently as six months ago, but made the mistake of effectively ceding small caucus states to Obama, who racked up an all but insurmountable delegate lead. Also, Obama’s message of change seemed to trump Clinton’s emphasis on experience.
Tuesday’s elections came as Obama was accused by McCain of being soft on Cuba.
“Senator Obama said he wants to sit down with no conditions and negotiate with Raul Castro,” McCain told Cuban-Americans in Florida.
Obama fired back by telling CNN, “I have never said that I was prepared to immediately normalize relations with Cuba.”
But in 2003, Obama wrote on a questionnaire, “I believe that normalization of relations with Cuba would help the oppressed and poverty-stricken Cuban people.”
