The Democrats’ looming stalemate

Sen. Barack Obama swept the Democratic Party’s “Potomac primaries” this week, edging ahead of Sen. Hillary Clinton for the first time in the delegate count and raising the prospect that the race for the presidential nomination may have to be settled at th

What happened

Sen. Barack Obama swept the Democratic Party’s “Potomac primaries” this week, edging ahead of Sen. Hillary Clinton for the first time in the delegate count and raising the prospect that the race for the presidential nomination may have to be settled at the Democratic convention in August. Obama’s wins in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia came by wide margins—he won 64 percent of the vote in Maryland, 75 percent in D.C.—and extended his winning streak to eight consecutive primaries since he and Clinton split the available delegates on Super Tuesday. Obama now has 1,114 pledged delegates against Clinton’s 989. Exit polls showed Obama making inroads with demographic groups that had previously eluded him, including women, Hispanics, and older white voters, but to win the nomination outright, he’d have to win most of the remaining primaries by large margins.

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