Seeing the portents of Tuesday’s split decision

Tom Curry National affairs writer • Profile • E-mail

HARTFORD, Conn. - The strengths of the rival Democratic contenders among specific groups of voters in Tuesday's elections offer a guide to the contests in the weeks ahead.

Sen. Barack Obama built his big victory in South Carolina last week on a coalition of highly educated, affluent professionals, young voters and African-Americans. He also showed great strength among highly educated, affluent white voters in New Hampshire, a state with a minuscule black population.

Obama's performance nationwide on Tuesday indicated that he can rely on this coalition to deliver victory in some states — but not all.

Across the nation in Tuesday's contests, Sen. Hillary Clinton often beat Obama among older, less wealthy and less educated voters, suggesting both the limits of his appeal and where she can concentrate her efforts for votes in the next primaries.

Here’s how Clinton and Obama performed among crucial parts of the electorate.

Blue-collar America
San Bernardino and Riverside Counties in the "Inland Empire" of southern California are home to hard-working, hard-pressed people who endure long commutes because they couldn't afford to buy home in the Los Angeles housing market.

The two counties also rank among the top counties in the nation for real estate foreclosures.

Clinton appealed to voters in these two counties far more than Obama did: she won three-fifths of the vote in each county.

Clinton also beat Obama by a huge margin in Fall River, Mass., a city of traditional Catholic, socially conservative, working-class voters. Clinton won 77 percent of the Fall River vote, to Obama’s 19 percent. Clinton also trounced Obama in the white working-class town of Haverhill, Mass.

This suggests Obama has a problem — similar to one seen in the New Hampshire results — with less affluent, non-Ivy League, white Democrats.

But conflicting evidence comes from Waterbury, Conn., an old industrial city that Sen. Joe Lieberman carried by a landslide over anti-war challenger Ned Lamont in the 2006 Democratic Senate primary.

Clinton needed a similar margin in Waterbury in order to win statewide, but Obama won the city with 51 percent of the vote.

Video Clinton: ‘We’re going to take back America’ Feb. 5: After winning the Ark., Okla., Mass., Tenn, N.Y. and N.J. primaries, Sen. Hillary Clinton tells supporters she won’t give up her White House bid without a fight, and said she won’t “let anyone ‘swift boat’ this country’s future.”

In the far suburbs of New York City, Suffolk County is a good specimen of a once-Republican county turning more Democratic.

Many working-class white voters here cast ballots for George Bush in 2004 — he got 48 percent in this county — but they may be open to a Democratic presidential candidate this year.

Obama got 35 percent of the vote in Suffolk. Clinton had an advantage here since New York is her home state.

A California split
If you think of  wineries, redwood trees, and coastal vistas when you think of California, then you have a picture mostly of Obama's California.

Obama's highest percentages were in northern California. He carried San Francisco and Alameda County, which includes Berkeley and Oakland.

Drive north across the Golden Gate Bridge and head to Marin, Sonoma, Mendocino, and Humboldt counties and you are in Obama Country.

But if you drive south or head inland away from San Francisco, you would generally be in Clinton Country: she won such inland counties as Sacramento, Fresno, Imperial, Kern and Riverside.  

And most importantly she easily beat Obama in the three counties that cast the highest number of Democratic votes in California: Los Angeles, San Diego, and Orange counties.

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