In a commanding victory for Barack Obama, early results showed the Illinois senator winning among Maryland Democrats across all ages and demographics.
Fueled by an overwhelming youth and black vote, Obama won the majority of Maryland’s 70 delegates to be doled out proportionally based on the final results of Tuesday’s primary.
Twenty-nine party leaders deemed “super delegates” will also vote for the nominee at July’s Democratic convention, but do not need to commit to a candidate before then.
Election officials estimated that nearly 40 percent of Maryland’s 3.1 million registered voters, up from 27 percent in 2004, turned out Tuesday to cast ballots in the state’s most influential primary election in years.
“If Obama did in fact get 65 percent of the vote, that means he won nearly all of the black vote and a substantial portion of the white vote,” said Don Norris, chairman of the department of public policy at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. “Even taking into account Maryland’s liberal voting record, a victory of this magnitude in Maryland will feed into Obama’s Big Mo. Momentum,” Norris said.
The youth vote was made stronger by Maryland’s recent law allowing 17-year-olds who will be 18 in November to vote in the primary, a category that includes the majority of the state’s 60,000 high school seniors.
“I’m definitely glad to help Obama win the nomination,” said Brahm Persaud, 17, a student at Greenbelt’s Eleanor Roosevelt High School.
Persaud said online social networking has helped to define the election, especially for Maryland’s youngest voters. On Facebook, Obama’s page has 506,449 supporters nationwide, compared with Clinton’s 112,340.
“Young people don’t like her very much,” Persaud said.
Obama’s campaign also utilized mobile phone text messaging to motivate Maryland voters, sending campaign slogans and information throughout the day, including news that polls would close an hour and half later than planned due to inclement weather.
Clinton supporters championed her intelligence and experience.
“She’s so brilliant, and she’s capable of telling Bill to buzz off,” said Marion Robertson, 73, a retired health care administrator.
Even so, she said either Clinton or Obama “willbe a great candidate.”
