Poll: Gender and race played role in Ohio

Some say the economy is the most important issue.

COLUMBUS (AP) — Though rarely mentioned on the campaign trail, race and gender weighed heavily on the minds of some voters in the Democratic presidential primary.

The sharp divide among blacks and whites and women and men showed that it wasn’t just the economy and the Iraq war that mattered to voters Tuesday. Hillary Rodham Clinton won Ohio’s primary, as well as the voting in Texas and Rhode Island.

When asked how much race influenced their vote, 20 percent of Ohio voters said it was an important issue and three in five voted for Clinton, according to exit polls for The Associated Press and television networks.

She also won 58 percent of the vote among white men, a key swing group that her rival Barack Obama had made inroads with in recent weeks.

White women, a core of her support throughout the primaries, accounted for 44 percent of all voters and two in three backed Clinton.

With Obama trying to become the first black president, 87 percent of black voters around Ohio overwhelmingly stuck with the U.S. senator from Illinois.

Obama’s showing among black voters wasn’t surprising, although they did turn out in bigger numbers Tuesday, accounting for about one in five voters this year compared with one in seven in the Democratic primary four years ago.

Obama strategist David Axelrod on Wednesday downplayed suggestions that race was a factor in the Ohio results, calling it a false argument.

He said the economy will remain the dominant theme through November. “The economic issues that are facing the state are such that I think people in Ohio have had their fill of Republican policies and Republican leadership,” he said.

In Ohio, 59 percent of Democratic voters said the economy is most important issue facing the country.

The role that gender played couldn’t be ignored in a race that may produce the first female president.

Seventeen percent of Democrats in Ohio said gender was important to their vote, and they voted 60 percent for Clinton.

The support she picked up from women in Ohio was a big change from two weeks ago when she split the group in the Wisconsin primary, which she lost.