ABC News: Obama Wins North Carolina But Indiana Too Close To Call
May 6th, 2008 by JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief
ABC News says that based on exit polling it is calling the North Carolina primary for Senator Barack Obama — amid increasing signs that the Democratic party may be gravely split so many Democrats will stay home in November whether Obama gets the Presidential nomination or his rival, Senator Hillary Clinton.
Indiana, ABC News reports, is too close to call. But the conventional wisdom has been that if there was a “split” tonight, Obama would get North Carolina and Clinton would win Indiana. ABC News:
As expected, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has solidly won the North Carolina primary, ABC News projects, while he and Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, remain locked in a tight race in Indiana.
Nearly unanimous support among African-Americans who accounted for a third of voters in North Carolina lifted Obama to easy victory, according to preliminary exit poll results.
About 91 percent of African Americans supported Obama in preliminary exit poll results. Obama also benefited from a surge of new voters; 18 percent in North Carolina said it was their first time voting in a primary, and they favored him by a vast 68-26 percent.
Meanwhile, the race is too close to call in Indiana. The Hoosier State is seen as Clinton’s best chance for victory, with demographics similar to Ohio and Pennsylvania — states she has won in the past — but Obama remains competitive in Indiana, a state that borders his homestate of Illinois.
But the larger issue for the Democrats as the rest of the results come will be: is the Democratic party now on the way to being badly broken? The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder, looking at some exit polls writes:
Forget the horse race numbers for a moment: if the surveys are accurate, the polarization within the Democratic Party has reached critical levels. Nearly six in ten Obama supporters in Indiana say they would be dissatisfied if Clinton were the nominee — that’s (I believe) the high percentage of Obama supporters who have ever said that.
In both IN and NC, two thirds of Clinton supporters say they’d be dissatisfied if Obama were the nominee — I believe that’s the highest number recorded for that question, too.
The percentage of Clinton voters who say they’d choose McCain over Obama in a general election is approaching 40% in Indiana. Put it another way: in North Carolina, less than HALF of folks who voted today for Hillary Clinton are ready to say today that they’d definitely vote for Obama in a general election.
And if the evening shapes up the way the conventional wisdom has suggested it could — Obama winning North Carolina, Clinton winning Indiana — this race will most assuredly go on for a while. Each camp will try and discount their loss in the state they lose. But a lot of what goes on will be aimed at Superdelegates, who will be under more pressure than ever to change sides.
If Clinton or Obama would win both states, the dynamics of the battle for the nomination could change. But if the ABC projection holds and Clinton wins Indiana the increasingly — and perhaps mortally — divisive battle for the Democratic nomination will continue as it did a week ago.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 6th, 2008 at 4:43 pm and is filed under Newsweek Blogitics, Democratic Party, Primaries, North Carolina, Indiana, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, 2008 Elections, Breaking News, Democrats, Republicans, Politics. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
