Several news organizations report that Democratic Senator Barack Obama is projected to win the Virginia primary handily in a victory that indicates growing widespread support — and that Republican Senator John McCain is still getting a stern political spanking from hard-line conservative voters in a GOP primary race that remains too close to all.
Sen. Barack Obama was projected to add to his string of recent victories with a substantial triumph over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in Virginia’s Democratic presidential primary, NBC News reported Tuesday.
In the Republican primary, NBC said the race between Sen. John McCain and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee was too close to call.
Voters in Maryland and the District of Columbia also were going to the polls Tuesday.
An Obama triumph would make it six straight over Clinton, the former first lady, who is now struggling to keep up in a race she once commanded. With 168 delegates at stake on Tuesday, Obama hoped to build on the lead that he has gained on Clinton in the past week in NBC News’ delegate count.
Interviews with voters leaving the polls in Virginia showed Obama drawing strong support across race and gender lines, indicating that he was eating into Clinton’s voter base.
And the details do show an expansion of his support:
Obama, who is hoping to become the first black president, won the votes of nine in 10 black voters in Virginia, where they were about a third of the electorate. That offset Clinton’s support among white women, six in 10 of whom voted for her.
But overall, Obama won among both men and women, even winning among white men.
Obama won the votes of eight in 10 Virginia Democrats under age 30. He did better than Clinton in nearly every age group, although Clinton had stronger support among older voters. The two candidates were about even among senior citizens. Obama won the votes of six in 10 white voters under age 50, while Clinton won six in 10 white voters over age 50
.
There were also a lot of new voters:
More than a third of voters in the Virginia Democratic primary said they had not voted in a primary before, as did almost one in five voters in the Maryland Democratic primary, according to the exit interviews.
Meanwhile, even though he has the nomination reportedly locked up, McCain continues to face gathering storm clouds to his right — and a loss of some independent voter support:
McCain lost caucuses in Kansas and a primary in Louisiana on Saturday to Huckabee, his last remaining major rival. He won caucuses in Washington state.
But exit interviews in Virginia showed the Huckabee was getting strong support from conservatives, a pivotal group within the GOP. Nearly seven in 10 voters in the Republican primary called themselves conservatives, and Huckabee was gaining half their votes in a strong challenge to McCain.
In a surprising showing of weakness for the Arizona senator, independents — a group McCain has dominated — were about evenly divided between him and Huckabee. People calling themselves loyal Republicans, who have previously given McCain a slight edge, were also split down the middle.
The Associated Press projected that Sen. Barack Obama would extended his electoral winning streak by capturing the Democratic presidential primary in Virginia today.
The victory makes Obama the clear front-runner in delegates, passing New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the onetime favorite. She has set her sights on March 4, with its key primaries in large states.
Voters in substantial numbers were turning out today for primaries in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia. Obama has momentum after winning five Democratic contests over the weekend.
On the Republican side, Sen. John McCain could win enough delegates to mathematically eliminate his opponents. The polls in Virginia closed at 4 p.m. PST. The others will close an hour later.
In Virginia, 60 delegates are at stake in the Republican race; for Democrats, 83 are stake, making it biggest prize of the day on the Democratic side.
The Democratic Party has proportional representation, so Clinton will win a share of the delegates. The Democrats’ candidate for the general election probably will be determined after the primaries are completed and the super-delegates — party officeholders and leaders — make their decision.
The bottom line:
(1) Obama has — for tonight at least — the beginning of Big Mo, which is fickle and could desert him when he hits the Clinton firewalls in Texas and Ohio next month.
(2) McCain continues to be shunned by many on the GOP’s right, spurred on by conservative talk show hosts who believe anyone is seen as moderate on any issues, reaches across the aisle on some votes, or gets independent support is a “liberal.” Monitoring these shows indicates these hosts seemingly would like to see him go down to defeat, unless he totally goes along with their positions. But if he shifts to placate them, he’ll lose him the kind of independent support he will need to win a general election.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.