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

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.