Last night's results
Posted: Wednesday, May 07, 2008 9:30 AM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under:
2008, Primaries
With 99% of precincts reporting, Obama easily won North Carolina, 56%-42%. And with 99% of precincts reporting in Indiana, Clinton won that state, 51%-49%.
Here’s the challenge for the Clinton campaign: More people right now believe the Washington Post’s headline versus the LA Times’.
The L.A. Times: "Obama takes North Carolina; Clinton wins Indiana." Subhead: "He remains well-positioned to win the nomination, but has not mustered the strength to finish off his rival."
The Washington Post’s: "Obama Is Decisive Winner in N.C.; Clinton Ekes Out Victory in Indiana" Subhead: "Former First Lady Vows to Continue Despite a Widening Delegate Gap"
The Washington Post piece notes that Obama “scored a landslide victory in North Carolina's Democratic presidential primary yesterday, moving him ever closer to locking up an insurmountable lead among pledged delegates, while Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton posted a razor-thin win in the hotly contested Indiana primary as she sought to keep her shaky candidacy for the nomination alive… The twin results solidified the status quo in the Democratic race, one that now gives Obama the clear advantage in the battle for the nomination because of his solid lead in the tally of pledged delegates. Despite her Indiana victory, Clinton emerged even more the underdog in the nomination battle.”
The New York Times: “The results from the two primaries, the largest remaining Democratic ones, assured that Mr. Obama would widen his lead in pledged delegates over Mrs. Clinton, providing him with new ammunition as he seeks to persuade Democratic leaders to coalesce around his campaign. He also increased his lead in the popular vote in winning North Carolina by more than 200,000 votes.” More: “In winning North Carolina by 14 percentage points, Mr. Obama … recorded his first primary victory in nearly two months. His campaign was preparing to open a new front in his battle with Mrs. Clinton, intensifying the argument to uncommitted Democratic superdelegates that he weathered a storm and that the time was dawning for the party to concentrate on the general election.”
The Boston Globe calls Obama’s North Carolina “decisive.” “Obama moved closer to clinching the Democratic nomination, adding to his increasingly strong advantage in pledged delegates and in the overall popular vote with just six contests remaining over the next month -- and none likely to radically reshape the race.”
Obama at his victory speech, per the New York Daily News. “‘Many of the pundits have suggested that this party is inalterably divided - that Sen. Clinton's supporters will not support me, and that my supporters would not support her,’ Obama said Tuesday night in his North Carolina victory speech. ‘I'm here tonight to tell you that I don't believe it.’ Before an ebullient crowd of thousands at North Carolina State University, Obama appeared to shift into general election campaign mode.”
Clinton and her campaign were upbeat throughout the two-week, two-state campaign, NBC/NJ’s Mike Memoli notes. They cited polls in Indiana and North Carolina moving in her direction -- a growing lead in the Hoosier State and a narrowing gap in the Tar Heel State. They secured the endorsement of Gov. Mike Easley and hammered away relentlessly on an issue they said polls showed was popular: a gas tax holiday. No less an authority than Dan Balz of the Washington Post wrote that Clinton seemed to have found her groove, while Maureen Dowd wrote (as only she could) that Clinton seemed to have sucked the life out of Obama.
But Memoli says the mood on the flight from Indianapolis to Washington, D.C., was quite grim. Aides were defensive -- even combative at times -- when pressed about how the campaign would respond to what is being viewed as a disappointing night. They said, rightly, that they had never predicted victory in North Carolina. Key to their argument was that Obama had hundreds of thousands of votes secured weeks before Election Day, making for an insurmountable lead.
The Raleigh News & Observer: “Obama carried North Carolina on Tuesday, winning a good chunk of its 115 pledged delegates and soaring to a solid victory on cascades of support from blacks, young people and voters who say they have been hit hard by the troubled economy… ‘They've been saying that North Carolina would be a game-changing state in this election," Obama said. "But what North Carolina decided is that the only game that needs changing is the one in Washington, D.C.’”
The headline from the Indy Star: “Clinton squeaks by Obama.”
The New York Post: “Hillary Rodham Clinton's bread-and-butter supporters - working-class voters and women - did not come to her in the numbers she needed in Indiana, exit polls showed. Clinton managed only a narrow victory because she captured just small majorities among those two core groups, who had been responsible for giving her strong primary victories in Ohio and Pennsylvania over the last two months, according to exit surveys conducted for The Associated Press and a media consortium.”
The New York Daily News: “Hillary Clinton blew her last, best chance to turn in a game-changing primary win Tuesday night, as Barack Obama rolled to a landslide in North Carolina while Clinton barely edged him in Indiana.”
The AP’s Fouhy: “Hillary Rodham Clinton needed a game changer. Instead, it's almost game over.”
The Wright factor… “Wright was a looming factor in the voting, with nearly half in each state saying he was important in choosing a candidate. Of that group, seven in 10 in Indiana and six in 10 in North Carolina backed Clinton. Those saying Wright did not influence them heavily favored Obama. In North Carolina, Obama got more votes from people saying they discounted the Wright episode than Clinton got from those affected by it, while in Indiana the two groups were about equal in size.
“Among whites, eight in 10 in both states who said Wright affected their choice went with Clinton. That was well above the six in 10 whites overall who supported her. In both states, two-thirds of Clinton's white voters said Wright was important. That compared to eight in 10 white Obama supporters who said Wright was not a factor.”
