Clinton Wins Pennsylvania
Hillary Clinton won the Pennsylvania primary Tuesday, buoyed by support from women and blue-collar voters and pushing her duel with Barack Obama on to Indiana and North Carolina on May 6.
Amid brisk turnout, Clinton won a victory that many polls had predicted. The ultimate margin remained unclear, but her campaign insisted that a victory was a victory, particularly amid a spending onslaught by a more financially more robust Obama campaign.
"I think a win is a win. Maybe I'm old fashioned about that," Clinton insisted to reporters Tuesday before the votes were counted. "I think maybe the question ought to be, why can't he close the deal with his extraordinary financial advantage? Why can't he win a state like this one if that's the way it turns out ... big states, states that Democrats have to win."
Clinton had to have a win in order to buttress her argument for staying in the race, despite Obama’s lead in pledged delegates and growing angst among Democratic elders about party unity in time for the fall campaign.
Obama began the night with a delegate lead, 1648.5-1509.5, out of 2,025 needed to win the nomination. The prize in Pennsylvania: 158 delegates.
Exit polls explained the dynamics of Clinton’s win, showing her ahead among blue-collar voters, women and white men.
Obama was favored by blacks, the affluent and voters who recently switched to the Democratic Party.
The same polls showed Obama ran ahead in Philadelphia and the populous surrounding suburbs, while Clinton was leading in Pittsburgh and the western part of the state as well as the blue-collar area around Scranton.
Women cast about 60 percent of the votes, and turnout among older voters, another group in which she has scored well, was high. Voters also had a dim view of the economy - more than 80 percent said the nation is already in a recession, according to interviews conducted by The Associated Press and the TV networks.
Nearly one quarter of Pennsylvania Democrats - 23 percent - decided who to vote for in the last week, according to exit polls. And more than half said the economy was their most important issue.
Obama, meanwhile, has worked to lower expectations in recent days – flatly stating that he expects Clinton to win – while making a furious push over the past few weeks to finish better than expected in Pennsylvania and possibly finish the New York senator off.
Late Tuesday, however, he told XM Radio: “If Senator Clinton gets over 50 percent she’s won the state, and I don’t try and pretend that I enjoy getting only 45 percent and that’s a moral victory. You’ve lost the state.”
Some Pennsylvania voters couldn’t be blamed if they were ready to collapse from exhaustion after a barrage of ads and visits and barbed campaign rhetoric on a scale that normally is reserved for traditional early states such as Iowa and New Hampshire.
Obama reported spending $11.2 million on television in the state, compared with $4.8 million for Clinton. And that doesn’t begin to measure the blanket free media coverage that was fueled by controversies about Obama (comments by his former pastor and his own “poor word choices” about the bitterness of working-class voters) and Clinton (a gaffe about the alleged dangers of a 1996 trip to Bosnia-Herzegovina).
Bill Clinton also remained in the headlines even as voters headed to the polls. The former president told a Philadelphia radio station Monday that despite widespread criticism for his racially charged comments during the South Carolina primary in January, he felt Obama’s campaign “had played the race card” on him.
On Tuesday, Clinton disputed his previous interview, a tape of which was readily available on the Web. “No, no, no, that's not what I said," Clinton said during a visit to a Pittsburgh voting site. “You always follow me around and pay these little games. And I am not going to play your games today.”
Barring an upset — and the 2008 cycle has already seen its share of those — political observers expect the Clinton-Obama grudge match to move on to Indiana and North Carolina on May 6. Indiana, a state that offers neither candidate an obvious advantage, may loom particularly large.
In the meantime, both candidates were assuring their followers that no matter who wins the nomination, the party will come together to defeat John McCain, who was also on the Pennsylvania ballot Tuesday.
Clinton, speaking to reporters in Conshohocken, said she'd campaign for a united Democratic Party no matter the primary outcome.
"Anybody who supports Barack or me would be very foolish to think voting for Sen. McCain makes any sense," she said.
Ben Smith contributed to this story.