Obama wins N.C. easily; Clinton leads in Indiana

Six primaries remain, beginning Tuesday in West Virginia.

McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Barack Obama won North Carolina’s primary Tuesday, while Hillary Clinton clung late in the evening to a narrow lead in Indiana — a possible split decision likely to mean that the lengthy race for the Democratic presidential nomination could plod on through the summer.

In North Carolina, with 82 percent of precincts reporting, Obama had 57 percent to Clinton’s 43 percent.

Clinton led the Illinois senator in Indiana, 52 to 48 percent, with 85 percent of precincts reporting. But results from Lake County, which borders Obama’s home state of Illinois and includes the predominantly black city of Gary, hadn’t been tallied as of 10:45 p.m. EDT. Officials there were counting absentee ballots first and said they wouldn’t release any results until that process was finished.

Obama, still ahead in the convention delegate race, celebrated his North Carolina victory — and prematurely congratulated Clinton on winning Indiana — by trying to heal his fractured party.

“Tonight,” Obama said, “many of the pundits have suggested that this party is inalterably divided — that Senator Clinton’s supporters will not support me, and that my supporters will not support her. Well, I’m here tonight to tell you that I don’t believe it.”

Clinton was upbeat at an Indianapolis rally. She noted that Obama had once called Indiana the tiebreaker. “Tonight, we’ve come from behind, we’ve broken the tie,” she said. She congratulated Obama, also stressing unity, saying that she and her rival were on the “same journey.”

But neither Clinton nor Obama got what each badly wanted in the Tuesday contests — twin slam-dunk victories. As a result, neither candidate appeared to garner persuasive evidence to argue that he or she would be the stronger Democratic nominee or gain enough momentum to make either’s nomination seem inevitable.

North Carolina had 115 convention delegates at stake and Indiana 72. Late Tuesday, Obama led Clinton in delegates, 1,785.5 to 1,639, with 2,025 needed to nominate.

The gap between the two — and the continuing uncertainty over who’s the stronger nominee — appeared likely to remain unchanged, as both once again failed to show conclusively that he or she could attract sizable groups of voters beyond his or her core supporters.

Obama had been expected to win handily in North Carolina, where blacks account for about one-third of the Democratic vote.

He needed a victory in Indiana, where only about one in seven voters is black, to show that he could expand his reach.

The Illinois senator’s last non-Southern predominantly white state primary victory was in Vermont on March 4. Since then he’s lost a string of primaries in diverse big states, including Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania, where Clinton rolled up large majorities among white working-class voters.

Clinton had hoped to break through in the South by adding North Carolina to that list, but apparently failed to capitalize on two weeks of Obama being on the defensive, despite her energetic campaigning and that of her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

He spent much of his time trying to distance himself from his controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and fighting Clinton’s plan to push a freeze on the federal gasoline tax, which he called an empty gimmick.

But exit polls read like reruns of primaries past. Obama won 91 percent of the black vote in North Carolina, but Clinton took 60 percent of the white vote. Similarly, in Indiana, Clinton won 60 percent of the white vote, while Obama got 92 percent of the black vote.

The Wright controversy appeared to hurt Obama. About half of those surveyed in the exit polls in both states said the “situation with Rev. Wright” was important, and they went heavily for Clinton.

Clinton appeared to run strong with voter blocs that she traditionally carries, winning strong majorities of voters earning between $15,000 and $75,000 in Indiana. And she rolled up a 3 to 2 margin among white women in Indiana and a 2 to 1 margin in North Carolina.

But she wasn’t able to expand her constituency much beyond that. Among voters under 30, exit polls showed she lost by nearly 3 to 1 in North Carolina and about 3 to 2 among voters under 30 in Indiana. Among “very liberal” voters, she lost by a 3 to 2 margin in Indiana and more than 2 to 1 in North Carolina, while narrowly winning moderates in Indiana and picking up “somewhat conservative” voters in both states.

There was little evidence that her gas tax-relief plan, which she promoted relentlessly with television commercials and at her rallies, won her much support.

Obama fought back hard against the gasoline tax plan, calling it a “classic Washington gimmick” and “a strategy to get through the next election.”

Many voters agreed that the Clinton plan was hardly the cure-all for their economic woes. Still, some appreciated the gesture.

“It’ll help for a while,” said Ellen Leonard, a Jeffersonville, Ind., housewife who went for Clinton.

Others were less enthusiastic. “It’s like getting the $600 [tax rebate] check. It’s no solution to the bigger problem,” said Michelle Engleman, a Clarksville, Ind., stage manager.

Six primaries remain, beginning Tuesday in West Virginia and ending June 3 in Montana and South Dakota, but they have little chance of shifting the momentum. The six states’ total of 217 delegates is fewer than the approximately 230 superdelegates — elected Democrats and party officials — who remain uncommitted.

Those delegates are waiting for some signal as to who’ll be the stronger candidate against presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, and exit polls gave them few clues Tuesday.

Clinton currently leads among superdelegates by 269 to 255, and the Tuesday results aren’t expected to sway many of those who remain undecided.

“I’m not going to make a decision tomorrow,” chuckled one superdelegate, Rep. Sam Farr, D-Calif., in an interview with McClatchy Newspapers.