Barack Obama trounced Hillary Clinton in North Carolina’s presidential primary Tuesday, but Clinton led in Indiana, setting the stage for three more weeks of pitched battles for the Democratic nomination.
By winning the larger state and winning it by a larger margin, Obama padded his lead in delegates and popular votes, piling ever more obstacles on Clinton’s already narrow path to the nomination.
“Tonight we stand less than 200 delegates away from securing the Democratic nomination for president of the United States,” Obama told ecstatic supporters in Raleigh, N.C.
“You know, some were saying that North Carolina would be a game-changer in this election,” he said in reference to Clinton’s prediction. “But today, what North Carolina decided is that the only game that needs changing is the one in Washington, D.C.”
With 56 percent of precincts counted in North Carolina, the nation’s 10th most populous state, Obama was beating Clinton by a margin of 58 to 42 percent. In Indiana, the 15th most populous state, with 76 percent of precincts reporting, Clinton was ahead 52 to 48 percent.
Democratic Party rules called for North Carolina’s 115 delegates and Indiana’s 72 delegates to be allocated proportionately to the two candidates. Obama was expected to post a net gain of a dozen or more delegates, meaning Clinton would have to win two-thirds of the remaining delegates.
Also, by winning by a substantial margin in North Carolina, Obama added upward of 200,000 to his popular vote edge over Clinton, who was behind by 500,000 votes before Tuesday’s contests.
Earlier Tuesday, before the votes were counted, Clinton looked ahead to the final five states and Puerto Rico, vowing to compete in “the rest of these contests, which are very significant. And then in June, if we haven’t done it already, we’re going to have to resolve Florida and Michigan.”
Although both states were stripped of their delegates by the Democratic National Committee for holding their primaries too early, Clinton insisted the delegations be counted. She said Tuesday the nomination cannot be clinched without 2,209 delegates, a figure that includes Michigan and Florida, as opposed to the 2,025 figure that excludes those states.
Exit polls showed Clinton beating Obama among white men in both Indiana (58 to 42 percent) and North Carolina (54 to 40). Analysts attribute at least some of that disparity to the anti-white rhetoric of Obama’s ex-pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
But Obama continued to win the overwhelmingmajority of black voters, who comprised at least a third of the electorate in North Carolina and about 15 percent in Indiana.
In Indiana, 48 percent of voters said they were affected a great deal by the economy. Of those, 53 percent voted for Clinton, 47 percent chose Obama.
That suggested Clinton might have won the political debate over a federal gas tax holiday. Clinton campaigned hard on a proposal to suspend the 18-cents-per-gallon tax for the summer, and Obama called it an election-season gimmick.
