Barack Obama's Momentum Grows

By Steven Rosenfeld, AlterNet. Posted February 20, 2008.

What will Hillary Clinton do now? That is the question coming out of Tuesday's big win in Wisconsin for Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., where exit polls found he drew voters from the very ranks that supported Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., in prior primary and caucus states: women, white men, middle-aged voters and union households.

With 97 percent of precincts reporting, representing more than a million voters, Obama had 57 percent compared to 41 percent for Clinton. More notable than that solid margin of victory, which came after both candidates campaigned hard in Wisconsin, was the increasingly broad support that Obama appears to be generating.

According to exit polls, Obama won: all age groups under 65; white voters under age 60; all education levels; all income levels; all regions of the state -- rural, suburban and urban; and among Democrats, Republicans and Independents. Obama also won among voters who picked a candidate in the past week and among union members and union households, the exit poll data said. And he tied Clinton among women.

Wisconsin was the ninth contest Obama has won in a row. The exit polling also showed his support has been growing in key segments of the electorate since 2008's first primaries and caucuses. In New Hampshire, for example, Obama won 38 percent of the vote among white men. In Wisconsin, he won 62 percent. In New Hampshire, he won a third of voters aged 50 to 60, while in Wisconsin he won more than half that group. And among people earning $30,000 to $50,000 a year, Obama also went from winning a third of those voters in New Hampshire to more than half in Wisconsin.

While pollsters and pundits may quibble over comparisons between these states, what is unmistakable is Wisconsin has confirmed the new dynamics of the Democratic contest. Obama is indeed the front runner, gaining not just more delegates than Clinton but also attracting a growing cross-section of the party's base. In short, it appears that Democrats -- and Independents -- are coalescing around his candidacy.

According to CNN, Obama now has 1,294 delegates, compared to 1,234 delegates for Clinton. In Wisconsin, 92 delegates were at stake. Hawaii also held a Democratic caucus on Tuesday, which Obama overwhelmingly won with 76 percent of the vote compared to 24 percent for Clinton. Twenty-nine delegates are at stake in that contest, whose results were announced early Wednesday. The next primaries are on March 4, when four states, including Texas and Ohio, vote.

Candidates comment

"We just heard we won tonight in Wisconsin," Obama said, speaking at a rally in Houston, Texas, where after thanking Wisconsin voters, he turned his attention to the state with the largest block of delegates left in the Democratic nominating contest. "But we know this, Houston, the change we seek is still months and miles away, and we need the good people of Texas to help us get there."

"Understand this Houston, as wonderful as this gathering is," he continued, "what we are trying to do here is not easy, and it will not happen overnight. It is going to take more than big rallies. It will require more than rousing speeches. It will also require more than policy papers and positions and websites. It is going to require something more, because the problems that we face in America today is not the lack of good ideas, it is that Washington has become a place where good ideas go to die."

Clinton, meanwhile, was in Youngstown, Ohio, where she did not mention the Wisconsin results in her rally.

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Steven Rosenfeld is a senior fellow at Alternet.org and co-author of "What Happened in Ohio: A Documentary Record of Theft and Fraud in the 2004 Election," with Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman (The New Press, 2006).

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