Clinton Wins Pennsylvania Decisively
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D., N.Y.) has again managed to come through with a key victory when her back was against the wall. She won Tuesday's long awaited Pennsylvania primary over Sen. Barack Obama (D., Ill.) by 10 percentage points and made gains against Obama in the popular vote, beating him by more than 210,000 votes and winning the majority of counties in the state.
Two exit polls (
and
) show Clinton winning her usual voting bloc -- women and older voters. She narrowly lost the male vote 48% to Obama's 52%, but she won among white male voters, in similar fashion to her victories in Ohio and Texas.
Obama missed an opportunity to knock Clinton out of the race. Since January, his campaign coffers have collected about $45 million more than Clinton, and Obama used the fundraising advantage to buy television time. He outspent Clinton three to one in Pennsylvania, and the spending gap had tightened the race. Early polls in the state had Clinton leading by margins as wide as 15 to 20 points, which had dwindled in recent days to single digits in most polls.
One poll
even had Obama winning on Tuesday.
He came under fire in recent weeks for comments attributed to him saying people from small towns are "bitter" and "cling" to God, guns and anti-immigrant sentiment. Exit polls confirmed that this cost him with households who said they attend religious services and own guns. Many pundits have started calling this group "Reagan Democrats." Almost 10% of working-class Democrats defected in the 1980s, many of them religious and in favor of gun ownership. Could it happen in 2008?
The "bitter" comment could return to haunt Obama in a general election. Democrats haven't lost in Pennsylvania in a general election since 1988, when George H. W. Bush beat Michael Dukakis. Then Dukakis, similar to Obama, made missteps in debates -- the infamous question about what would he do if his wife were raped -- and was painted as weak on crime. (Someone may want to tell Obama not to take any pictures riding around in a tank.)
Obama's campaign had been lowering expectations in the days preceding the election. He predicted Clinton would win, though he thought the race would be tight. They will argue she had a natural advantage among the elderly electorate in Pennsylvania. An increasing number of political pundits have called for Clinton to exit the race, despite the fact the overall race remains close.
This win improved her standing in the pledged delegate count. It is true that Clinton probably won't catch Obama in pledged delegates. RealClearPolitics.com has Obama leading by 151 pledged delegates, which will be tough for her to overcome, and if trends hold, the candidates probably will split the remaining races. Clinton should win Kentucky, Puerto Rico and West Virginia, while Obama probably will take North Carolina and Oregon. Indiana, scheduled for May 6 with North Carolina, has been swinging back and forth between the two.
Pledged delegates will not decide the race. It comes down to what the superdelegates -- elected officials and party elites -- will decide after all of the primaries end on June 3. Electability has to be high on their list.
Superdelegates learned several things from Pennsylvania. First, Clinton proved herself to be a tough fighter who refuses to surrender. Second, Obama has created a wedge between himself and working-class Democrats, in particular with so-called "Reagan Democrats." Finally, even though Obama had a massive money advantage in advertising, he failed to seal the deal and beat Clinton.