Obama wins North Carolina primary

Washington, May 7: One of the frontrunners for the Democratic nomination for the US presidential polls, Barack Obama, won the crucial North Carolina (NC) primary on Tuesday, but the contest in Indiana is presently too close to call. In the beginning, former First Lady Hillary Clinton had a double-digit lead over Illinois Senator Obama, but by the end of the evening, Clinton's lead had shrunk to two percent.

With 85 per cent of Indiana precincts reporting, Clinton was ahead of Obama by 52-48 per cent. While in NC, with 99 percent of precincts reporting, Obama held a 14-point lead over Clinton. The win in NC will give Obama the larger share of the state's 115 delegates, whereas the Indiana has 72 delegates. "Tonight, we stand less than 200 delegates away from winning the Democratic nomination for president of the United States," Obama told his supporters in Raleigh, NC.

Before the two primaries, Obama was leading the delegate count with 1724.5 delegates with Clinton at 1593.5. In the super-delegate category, Clinton held a slender lead of 259 to 235.

The race between these two Democrats is expected to stretch over a few more weeks in primaries of West Virginia, Nebraska, Kentucky and Oregon.

A split decision in Tuesday's votes would leave the race largely unchanged before the last six contests, which have 217 delegates at stake.

With neither candidate expected to win the 2,025 delegates needed to clinch the Democratic nomination by June 3, the final decision is expected to fall to the 796 superdelegates at the party's August convention.

ANI