Clinton Claims She Has Turned a Corner

Hillary Clinton reassembled much of her core constituency to win three of four contests Tuesday for the Democratic presidential nomination, including the big prizes of Ohio and Texas. Barack Obama won in Vermont, while Clinton took Rhode Island. John McCain, clinching his race to be the Republican nominee, was heading to Washington to receive the endorsement of President George W. Bush.

In the Democratic race, the counting of delegates from the Texas caucus portion of the voting continued into Wednesday. Speaking to supporters in San Antonio Tuesday, Barack Obama said, “No matter what happens tonight, we have nearly the same delegate lead as we had this morning, and we are on our way to winning this nomination.”

Hillary Clinton, having gone into the Tuesday contests after a string of 11 defeats, told supporters in Columbus, Ohio, “We’ve begun a new chapter in this campaign.”

Clinton won the Ohio primary by a substantial 54 percent of the vote to Obama’s 44 percent. The race was much tighter in Texas, where Clinton won 51 percent and Obama 48 percent. She had an 18-point margin in her Rhode Island victory, taking 58 percent, while Obama won 59 percent of Vermont voters, racking up a 20-point margin over Clinton.

In Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island, Hillary Clinton won among her core constituents, white women and older voters, while Obama scored heavily with black voters. And Clinton won nearly two-thirds of Latino voters in Texas, where Latinos were nearly a third of the voters in the Democratic primary, up from one forth four years ago. But in Vermont Obama cut into Clinton’s bedrock of support, winning 6 in 10 women, nearly two-thirds of white voters, and 6 in 10 voters over 60 years old.
Among other results:

• Women out-voted men in Ohio, 59% to 41%, and in Texas, 57% to 43%.
• In the breakdown by gender and race, Clinton won 66% of white women in Ohio and 59% in Texas; she won 66% of Latinas in Texas, and 15% of black women.
• Clinton won the white male vote in Ohio, 55% to 44% for Obama; the two candidates split the white male vote in Texas, and Obama won black men by large margins in both states.
• By age, Clinton won 54% of voters 45 to 59, and 67% of those over 60 in Ohio, while Obama won with younger voters; similarly, in Texas, she won 53% of those aged 45 to 59, and 62% of voters over 60.
• Among Texas voters who made their decision on Tuesday or within the last three days, Clinton won 61% to Obama’s 38%. She also won 54% of Texas voters who said they are worried about their family’s financial future and lost among those who said they aren’t worried.

The Clinton campaign was clearly energized from the results, and a scheduled Washington staff meeting today turned from what might have been a painful discussion about ending her race into a strategy session for the future. In the coming weeks, 12 delegates are at stake in Wyoming and 33 in Mississippi, both states where Obama is given the edge. A bigger prize awaits the candidates in Pennsylvania on April 22, with 158 delegates, where Clinton should do well.

“As Ohio goes, so goes the nation,” she told her supporters in Columbus, adding, “Well, the nation is coming back and so is this campaign.”