May 7th, 2008
Cities, new voters push Obama forward in Indiana
There was a certain feel to Sen. Barack Obama’s speech last night in Raleigh, N.C. He didn’t win both Indiana and North Carolina last night, but he sure sounded like he did.
More than in past speeches Senator Obama talked like a presidential nominee. He thanked Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton for putting up a good fight, and then took on the man who is likely to be his rival in the fall: Sen. John McCain.
Clearly, the thinking was that his 14-point victory in North Carolina was overwhelming and that the squeaker loss in Indiana was close enough. He advanced his lead in pledged delegates. He advanced his popular vote advantage. His nomination became all but certain.
The results, when viewed through the prism of the Patchwork Nation map, do show some reason for optimism in the Obama camp. He won in some important places last night, particularly in Indiana, and he has made some inroads in areas that had been Senator Clinton’s core constituency.
Obama won a big “Emptying Nest” county (Allen), a community with a large share of older voters. He won a few “Monied ’Burbs” counties immediately around Indianapolis (Boon and Hamilton) that are well above 90 percent white. He also won an “Immigration Nation” county (Elkhart), which has a good-size Hispanic population.
He won those places he had to win, too. We wrote last week that the three counties Patchwork Nation classified as “Industrial Metropolis” (Marion, Lake, and St. Joseph, the respective homes of Indianapolis, Gary, and South Bend) were crucial for him. Last night, he carried all of them.
Perhaps just as important were the close margins by which he lost in “Emptying Nests,” which have been reliably in Clinton’s corner throughout this primary season. Although these counties were with her again, in Benton County, Montgomery County, and LaPorte County, her margin of victory was within 6 percentage points.
Tags: indiana, population
15 Responses to “Cities, new voters push Obama forward in Indiana”
Zogby sucks, there’s no other way to say it. In 2004 Zogby said that Virginia could go to Kerry, and it really wasn’t even close. If he’s still that far off, god help us.
Brazilian here. Please be gentle.Why aren’t they voting for him now, so that Obama gets the nomination once and for all? (if they are, they don’t count much, because Hillary is still too close to him)Is it so hard to register as a Democrat to vote in the primaries?
dude don’t laugh IT REALLY HAPPENED
there are 656,000 results when you google “obama secret muslim,” and 10 percent of democrats, 14 of republicans and 8 of independents thought he was a muslim.there might be more than one idiot who actually believes that Obama is a muslim in disguise. probably the same idiots who refuse to vote for him because of Reverend Wright.to paraphrase the reverend, “not god bless logic, GOD DAMN LOGIC!”
except for the one who thinks Obama is “too much Islamic.”
That could be intimidating — what if you aren’t very good at basketball? Should you still register voters? Decisions!Seriously, if there’s one thing I’ve been waiting for this primary, it’s to see Barack Obama play basketball. That will be, in my mind, the fat lady singing.We’ve seen him speak, we’ve seen him debate, we’ve even seen him dance, but so far we’ve missed out on what’s really important.
lol @ lols in this commentBob Delaware OH March 28th, 2008 3:23 pm ETNO ONE (lol) is answering this question….Why now? Why have a minority or women president now (after 240 years lol)? It’s ridiculous how bad our history is on this lol.
first president who can dunk ftw
Politically, it is a nice seque from Clinton’s midnight basketball policy. Rather than just talking about funding… the guy is actually out there dribbling. It sort of fits the underlying madness of each campaign. Hitting Hoops v. Puffery Poop.
It’s the dead ones that will put him over the top.
True ignorance:Jeanie March 28th, 2008 3:17 pm ETwow…Obama playing basket-ball in Indiania while Hillary is fighting with snipers in Bosnia..Wake Up America!!!
When doesn’t that apply?
because no one could actually like hillary over obama, that would be an example democracy! cant have that. Go away tool.
What does just one matter?