By James A. Barnes, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois handily captured Tuesday's Mississippi primary, which saw some of the most racially polarized voting of the 2008 Democratic presidential nominating contest. With 99 percent of the precincts reporting, Obama defeated Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, 61 percent to 37 percent.

	Among African-Americans, Obama carried an overwhelming 92 percent; Clinton won only 8 percent.

The primary electorate in Mississippi was almost evenly divided between white and black voters -- 48 percent and 50 percent respectively, according to the National Election Pool exit poll conducted by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International for AP, ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX and NBC.

That relatively high percentage of African-Americans and the solid support they gave the Illinois senator proved critical to his victory. Among whites, Obama won 26 percent of the vote, compared with 70 percent who backed Clinton. But among African-Americans, Obama carried an overwhelming 92 percent; Clinton won only 8 percent. Kentucky and North Carolina are the only remaining Southern states still waiting to weigh in on the Democratic race, and it's unlikely that African-Americans in those two states will make up as large a share of the primary vote as in Mississippi.

White voters of both genders overwhelmingly supported Clinton, although Obama did manage to capture 30 percent of white men.

Breaking partisan patterns in Democratic primary voting, Clinton also won a huge 75 percent of self-identified Republicans who voted in the Mississippi contest. There is no party registration in Mississippi, so the state's primaries are open to all voters, and roughly 12 percent of the participants in the Democratic contest identified themselves as Republicans. A week ago in Ohio, Clinton and Obama split the Republican vote in the Democratic primary; in Texas, Obama narrowly won the votes cast by self-identified Republicans in the Democratic contest.

In recent days, conservative radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh has urged Republicans to vote for Clinton to keep the Democratic presidential race unsettled. It's unclear how much of an effect that has had on the race, but in fast-growing DeSoto County, which includes suburbs of Memphis, there were reports of some polling places being besieged by an unusually high demand for Democratic ballots. Clinton carried DeSoto County.

Almost half of the Mississippi primary voters came from the state's rural areas, which have been a battleground between Clinton and Obama. She carried rural voters, 51 percent to 43 percent. But that significant racial divide was visible among rural voters as well: Clinton carried white rural voters by more than a 3-to-1 margin, while Obama carried African-American rural voters by more than an 8-to-1 margin.

In white rural counties in the northeastern corner of the state -- like Itawamba County, which has a 93 percent white population, according to 2006 Census figures; Prentiss, 85 percent white; Tippah, 81 percent white; and Tishomingo, 96 percent white -- Clinton won 80 percent, 73 percent, 71 percent and 82 percent of the vote, respectively.

Likewise, in heavily black rural counties in the state -- like Holmes, with an 81-percent black population; Jefferson, 86 percent African-American; and Noxubee, 70 percent African-American -- Obama won 80 percent, 88 percent and 80 percent of the vote, respectively.

But in Pennsylvania, the next key Democratic primary test six weeks from now, the rural portions of the states have few African-American voters.

Clinton won voters 65 years and older, but Obama won all the other age groups. Once again, a strong racial divide appeared. Among voters 30 to 44 years old, a bloc that has swung between the two Democratic contenders, Clinton carried whites' votes 65 percent to Obama's 30 percent. Among African-Americans of that age, Obama won 92 percent and just 8 percent went for Clinton.

Obama won three of the four congressional districts in the state, swamping Clinton in the 2nd District, which is the most urban in the state and has the highest African-American population. Clinton only narrowly carried the northeastern corner's 1st District, the most rural district in the state. She trailed Obama slightly in the 4th District, on the Gulf Coast. Those two districts have the lowest African-American populations in the state.

Although the Mississippi win was impressive for Obama, he will not get a major delegate boost from his victory. Of the 33 pledged delegates at stake, the Associated Press has allocated 17 to Obama and 11 to Clinton with nearly all the precincts reporting. Five delegates remained unallocated at presstime.

But the Obama campaign claimed that combined with the delegates it garnered from last week's Wyoming caucuses, Obama managed to offset the net delegate gains that Clinton scored in her victories in the Ohio, Rhode Island and Texas primaries on March 4. Last night, CNN called the Texas caucuses -- which controlled roughly a third of the state's pledged delegates -- for Obama.