Voter turnout in N.C. is believed a record.

By Sean Mussenden

MEDIA GENERAL NEWS SERVICE
Published: May 7, 2008

Voters turned out in record numbers for North Carolina’s first important presidential primary in recent memory. Nearly 2 million of the state’s 5.8 million registered voters participated, believed to be a modern-day record.

Obama carried Forsyth County, where he had 67 percent of the vote with 96 of 101 precincts reporting, and did well in the state’s other urban counties.

Polls taken last weekend showed Clinton had whittled down Obama’s lead to under five points by going after white working-class voters in rural areas with a populist economic message. Obama’s support among those voters also took a hit after the re-emergence of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, as an issue in the campaign in late April.

Exit polls showed that half of the voters in North Carolina considered the Wright issue important. But for Obama, it did not prove fatal.

Clinton spent the last week stressing populist economic themes in a bid to attract support from white blue-collar workers, and they provided one of the few bright spots of the night for her in North Carolina.

Steve Karapetian, 55, a white construction worker from Clemmons, voted for Clinton because he felt she had the experience and toughness to turn the country’s economy around.

“We are in dire straits,” Karapetian said. “Hillary is the only one with a realistic vision of how things work, the only one with a glimmer of hope of stabilizing this country.”

She also did better than Obama with older and middle-aged white women such as Diane Gandee, of Lewisville. She was a supporter of former President Bill Clinton, and hoped that his wife would mark a return of sorts of his presidency.

“We had them once, and it wasn’t too shabby,” Gandee said. Bill Clinton “might have had some problems but economically speaking times were good, things were booming, and we didn’t have pay outrageous prices for gas and milk.”

But Obama’s support with three key demographic groups helped provide him more than enough lift to deal Clinton a painful setback.

He attracted overwhelming support from college-educated whites, young voters and from black voters such as Kenneth Eaton of Winston-Salem. Nine out of 10 blacks voted for Obama.

Eaton never thought he would see a black candidate as the leading contender for the Democratic nomination. At 54, he cast the first vote of his life for Obama, but he had more than history on his mind. “Gas prices are up, poverty is up and we need somebody to take care of our people here in the U.S.,” he said.

As the Democratic primary season nears an end, Tuesday’s contests offered the largest remaining cache of delegates.

There were 72 delegates at stake in Indiana and 115 in North Carolina. According to The Associated Press, Obama won a at least 94 delegates and Clinton at least 75 in the two states combined, with 18 still to be awarded. As of last night, an AP tally of both pledged delegates and committed superdelegates had Obama ahead 1,800 to Clinton’s 1,654. The delegates allocated after yesterday’s primaries were not expected to significantly affect the delegate lead Obama holds over Clinton. Nor are the outcomes of the remaining six contests. West Virginia comes next, then Oregon, Kentucky, Puerto Rico, Montana and, finally, South Dakota on June 3.

Obama is likely to finish the race with more pledged delegates than Clinton, but not enough to meet the 2,025 delegate threshold by the time the last primary wraps up in June.

Because of that, the party’s superdelegates will determine which candidate goes on to face Republican John McCain in the fall.

There are more uncommitted superdelgates up for grabs—270—than there are pledged delegates in the remaining states.

Last night, both candidates used their nationally televised primary-night speeches to put their own spin on their victories and defeats for the benefit of the superdelegates.

Obama used his victory in North Carolina to show that he could win large states that could be competitive in the general election after losses in key swing states such as Pennsylvania and Ohio.

“I want to thank them for giving us a victory in a big state, in a swing state, in a state where we will compete to win if I am the Democratic nominee,” he said.

Clinton used her showing in Indiana to argue that she is the preferred candidate of the working-class white voters who could prove important in the general election. She made clear that she will continue to fight on.

“It would seem a little strange to have a nominee elected by only 48 states,” she said. “We’ve got a long road ahead.”

Republican voters also went to the polls to vote for presidential candidates, though the outcome was never in doubt. In that sense, it was more reminiscent of previous presidential primaries on both sides, when North Carolina voters had little say in choosing a nominee.

With 99 percent of North Carolina’s precincts reporting, McCain, the likely Republican nominee, led with 74 percent of the vote. Mike Huckabee trailed with 12 percent, followed by Ron Paul with 8 percent and Alan Keyes with 3 percent. Four percent of Republican voters had no preference.

■ Sean Mussenden can be reached at or at 202-662-7888.

■ Journal reporters Mary Giunca, Danielle Deaver and Jim Sparks contributed to this article.