
Clinton wins Kentucky by a big margin, similar to West Virginia - 65-35. The Oregon result in is still being counted but early returns indicate a solid Obama victory.
Judging by the this morning's headlines Obama certainly wins the spin war. Obama passed a mathematical and symbolic hurdle tonight. He now has a majority of all the available pledged (or voted-for) delegates. (Doesn't mean he's actually won - there could, in some weird parallel universe, or the head of Harold Ickes, be a landslide of the remaining superdelegates in Clinton's favour). Obama's campaign chose to mark the moment by holding a rally in Iowa, the place where it all began - and a state he needs to win in November. He made a powerful speech, and gave the news media a strong story to run with.
Smart move, because he wouldn't want them dwelling on the Kentucky result. Once again, he made no inroad whatsoever into the white working class vote there. Nor did he try. Which is understandable, except that several of the big swing states in the fall have a high proportion of voters from this group, so he really will have to do more to address this weakness in the future.
Of course, many of them are just unreachable for him. 21% of voters in Kentucky said race was a factor in their decision last night (and just in case you were in any doubt, 90% of them voted for Clinton). That's just the people saying it to an exit pollster.
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