WASHINGTON, 21 February 2008 — Presidential races eventually reach a tipping point, and Barack Obama’s win on Tuesday of Wisconsin and Hawaii just may have been it. His primary season winning streak now totals 10 and has put Hillary Clinton into a virtual must-win scenario in Democratic contests coming early next month in Texas and Ohio.
In Wisconsin, Obama had 58 percent of the vote — equating to at least 38 delegates — against 41 percent for Hillary — at least 27 delegates. For the first time, he broke into the ranks of her most loyal supporters — working class voters and white women — and challenged her on the core issue of the economy.
All this could jeopardize her hopes of making a comeback in Ohio, which has been badly hit by the housing crisis and industrial decline.
Hillary’s campaign also appears to have miscalculated their last-minute burst of negative advertisements in Wisconsin, where she accused Obama of plagiarizing his speeches from the Democratic governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick. The attacks appeared to have alienated the undecided voters, who turned toward Obama.
Obama also scored a decisive win in his native Hawaii, beating Hillary by 76 percent to 24 percent. Both candidates had sent high-profile relatives to the island state, with Chelsea Clinton appearing for her mother and Obama’s half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, making the rounds.
On the Republican side, Sen. John McCain of Arizona won an imposing victory over Gov. Mike Huckabee. He is now all but guaranteed his party’s nomination.
The Democratic race remains undecided, and either Obama or Hillary could still win, though the argument for Hillary is growing strained after 10 primary and caucus defeats in a row.
And, with two weeks left until the March 4 primaries, Obama has lots of time to gain on Hillary in both states. Obama is perhaps most famous for the immediate excitement he is able to raise wherever he goes, and also tends to do well over time as voters get to know him. The latest poll numbers suggest that Obama has nearly broken Hillary’s lead in Texas, and he has surged past Hillary to open a big national lead in the US Democratic presidential race, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released yesterday.
Obama also leads McCain in a potential November election match-up while Hillary trails McCain, enhancing Obama’s argument he is the Democrat with the best shot at capturing the White House. In a head-to-head match-up, Obama beat McCain 47 percent to 40 percent. He led McCain among independents, in all age groups except those above 70, and in all regions but the South.
The poll revealed that Obama has also moved ahead in the battle for pledged delegates who vote on the party’s nominee at the August convention.
“It can all turn on a dime and it already has turned on a dime. This has been a rollercoaster of a race,” pollster John Zogby said.
But Hillary and her top strategists have signaled that she’ll fight all the way to the convention to secure her place atop the 2008 ticket.
