Hillary Clinton’s hopes of winning the race for the Democratic nomination for president are dwindling after she failed on Wednesday to close the gap on Barack Obama in two key primaries. She won the Indiana primary but saw that outweighed by his win in North Carolina.
Clinton needed to win both North Carolina and Indiana to stand a chance of reining in Obama. It was her last opportunity after battling it out in state after state since Iowa on January 3.
In a speech in Indianapolis on Wednesday, she signalled her intention to battle on. She recalled that Obama had predicted Indiana would be the tie-breaker. ”Tonight, we came from behind and we have broken the tie and it is full speed to the White House,” she said.
With 85% of the vote counted in Indiana, Clinton had 554 261 (52%) and Obama 514 909 (48%).
In North Carolina, with 86% of the vote counted, he had 782 549 (56%) to Clinton’s 583 700 (42%).
She will struggle to raise money for the remainder of the campaign, which ends with primaries in Montana and South Dakota on June 3. She could continue the fight through to the party convention in August.
With only six primaries left, Obama is within touching distance of securing the Democratic nomination to face the Republican John McCain in November’s general election.
At an election night party in Raleigh, North Carolina, he denounced political pundits who said the Obama-Clinton contest had polarised the Democratic party and that in November Clinton’s supporters would not turn out to support him.
A third of Clinton backers claimed in exit polls on Wednesday they would vote for Republican John McCain if he faces Obama in November. One in five Obama supporters said they would vote for McCain over Clinton.
He acknowledged there will be ”bruised feelings” but predicted that the party would unite behind him in the autumn.
”This fall, we intend to march forward as one Democratic Party, united by a common vision for this country,” he said.
His call for unity was aimed at reassuring those senior Democrats worried about his repeated failure to finish off Clinton before now and his failure to connect with white, working-class voters.
Terry McAuliffe, Clinton’s campaign manager, argued that Obama’s defeat in Indiana — which borders his home state of Illinois — was a sign of weakness for his candidacy. ”He cannot beat us in these big industrial breadbasket states that you need to win in November and that’s a problem.”
The breakdown of the vote highlighted again the extent to which the Obama-Clinton contest has divided along racial lines.
While Clinton has virtually no support among African-Americans, the results showed Obama’s continued difficulties in attracting white voters.
Exit polls show that Clinton won 61% support among white women in Indiana and 58% among white men.
The racial divide was stark in North Carolina where Obama took 91% of the African-American vote and Clinton only 6%. About a third of the Democratic vote in North Carolina is African-American.
The two primaries came after Obama had been on the back-foot for the last two months. Opinion polls in North Carolina last week had suggested that Obama’s 25% lead at the start of the campaign had withered to single digits.
In Indiana, a predominantly conservative state that votes Republican in general elections, he won the mainly liberal wing of the Democratic party and she won the moderate and conservative wings.
Last week was his worst since he launched his campaign for the presidency in February last year.
He was tested by an incendiary public appearance last week by his former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, which pushed race up the agenda.
Among voters polled today, 48% of Democrats in Indiana and 48% in North Carolina said Wright’s comments, portrayed in the US media as unpatriotic, were ”very” or ”somewhat” important to their vote. White voters tended to say it was important while African-Americans tended to say it was not.
The primary attracted a record turnout in North Carolina and a large turnout in Indiana. But the end result was that Obama once again secured a net increase in his share of the delegates, who will choose the nominee,to add to his already commanding lead.
At the start of the night, Obama had 1 745 delegates to Clinton’s 1 608. A total of 2 025 delegates is needed to clinch the nomination. The proportional representation system means they will divide almost evenly the 72 delegates at stake in Indiana. He is expected to take more than half of the 115 delegates at stake in North Carolina.
Only six more primaries remain, ending with Montana and South Dakota, but these have a relatively small number of delegates,
From today, Clinton and Obama will shift their attentions to winning over about 270 undecided Democratic superdelegates — Congress members and others with an automatic vote.
The populist strategy deployed by Clinton in Indiana and North Carolina will be crucial to her efforts to woo those superdelegates. Her campaign argues that Clinton’s success in winning over working-class voters in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and now Indiana makes her a stronger candidate than Obama against McCain even though he has won the majority of Democratic contests.
In Indiana, the strategy saw Clinton ditching her previous persona of wordly First Lady and policy wonk to re-invent herself as a tough, beer-loving heroine of the working-classes.
The populist appeal was the most determined effort to date by Clinton to solidify her support among working class white men, following her victories over Obama in Ohio and Pennsylvania. – guardian.co.uk Â