Obama Cruises to Easy Mississippi Win, Six-Week Slog to Pennsylvania Begins

Posted by Steve Benen, The Carpetbagger Report at 9:46 AM on March 12, 2008.

By any reasonable measure, last week wasn’t Barack Obama’s best ever. He lost primaries in Ohio, Texas, and Rhode Island; he lost his top foreign policy advisor; and his intention of ending the nominating contest fell far short. Hillary Clinton narrowed Obama’s lead among pledged delegates by about 10, and claimed a new sense of momentum.

But Obama’s fortunes have turned around a bit of late. He won a landslide in the Wyoming caucuses over the weekend, with 61% support, and cruised to an easy victory in the Mississippi primary yesterday, winning by an almost identical margin.

Senator Barack Obama won Mississippi’s Democratic presidential primary on Tuesday, building his delegate lead over Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in the final contest before the nominating fight heads to Pennsylvania for a six-week showdown. […]

After a frenzied string of primaries and caucuses for more than two months, Mississippi was alone in holding its contest Tuesday, where 33 delegates were at stake. It was the last primary before a six-week interlude. The Pennsylvania primary on April 22 opens the final stage of the Democratic nominating fight, with eight states, Puerto Rico and Guam left to weigh in.

Mississippi offered Mr. Obama an opportunity to regain his footing after losing the popular vote to Mrs. Clinton last week in three contests, Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island. Mr. Obama had been expected to win resoundingly in Mississippi, a state where 36 percent of the population is black, the highest percentage in the nation. He has enjoyed strong support among black voters and won all the other contests in the Deep South by large margins.

With just about all the votes counted, Obama won with 61% of the vote, to Clinton’s 37%. More importantly, Obama walks out of Mississippi with a net gain of seven delegates. Combined with Wyoming’s results, Obama has already erased the delegate gains Clinton made on March 4.

So, what made the difference? Let’s look at the various tidbits from the exit polls:

* Gender: Obama won 61% of men and 58% of women. That’s going to lead to a pretty good day.

* Race: It’s fair to say this was an important factor in Mississippi. 91% of African-American voters backed Obama, while 72% of white voters backed Clinton.

* Age: There continues to be a striking age gap between the candidates. Despite Obama’s landslide win, Clinton still won a majority of voters 60 and older.

* Income: Obama won every income group except those making more than $75,000, who preferred Clinton.

* Honesty: Here’s a surprising one. 70% of Mississippi voters said Obama is honest and trustworthy. Only 52% said the same about Clinton.

* Commander-in-Chief test: Voters preferred Obama to Clinton by 10 points on this question, 53% to 43%.

* Republicans: Is Rush Limbaugh’s strategy catching on? 13% of voters in the Democratic primary identified themselves as Republicans, and they overwhelmingly backed Clinton over Obama, 78% to 22%.

* VP: 6 in 10 Obama backers said that he should select Clinton for the ticket if he won the nomination, while 4 in 10 Clinton supporters said she should choose Obama if he she won.

And with that, the long slog to Pennsylvania begins — its primary is six long weeks from yesterday.

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Tagged as: clinton, obama, mississippi, wyoming

Steve Benen is a freelance writer/researcher and creator of The Carpetbagger Report. In addition, he is the lead editor of Salon.com's Blog Report, and has been a contributor to Talking Points Memo, Washington Monthly, Crooks & Liars, The American Prospect, and the Guardian.