Two Candidates, Two States and One Big Day

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Democrats Split Indiana and North Carolina

Sen. Barack Obama won North Carolina's presidential primary by a wide margin Tuesday, while Sen. Hillary Clinton narrowly won in Indiana.

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Public polls show Clinton trailing in North Carolina, where about a third of voters are expected to be African American, but both campaigns have detected volatility over the past 10 days as Wright has reemerged as a campaign issue. Clinton's schedule reflected a dynamic that both campaigns seem to agree on: She remained behind but has gained ground over the past two weeks in North Carolina, while Indiana is essentially a dead heat. Clinton aides said Monday that the candidate, along with former president Bill Clinton and their daughter, Chelsea, had logged more than 100 events in Indiana since mid-March.

Obama returned to Indianapolis for a rally Monday night with Stevie Wonder, but otherwise his campaign style was more casual and smaller-scale. He showed up at dawn at an Evansville construction site, greeting about 50 workers in hard hats as they filed through the gate. During his swing through North Carolina, he held a modest town hall meeting in a high-tech factory and then dropped by a coffee shop in downtown Durham.

Only six primaries remain after Tuesday, and only one -- Oregon -- is considered competitive, though polls suggest Obama is favored there. The Puerto Rico primary on June 1 offers the largest haul of pledged delegates, with 55 up for grabs in the U.S. territory. The other contests -- in West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, Montana and South Dakota -- represent a total of 162 pledged delegates.

By comparison, Indiana's 72 pledged delegates and North Carolina's 115 represent Clinton's best chances to close the delegate gap with Obama, who leads 1,745 to 1,607, according to the Associated Press.

"These are states where Senator Obama started out with substantial advantages," said Clinton strategist Geoff Garin.

But Obama advisers are confident that the landscape has stabilized in recent days, and that a split decision is the most likely outcome -- leaving Obama with a firm lead in pledged delegates and popular votes. They believe his objection to the gas tax holiday will resonate with voters who are fed up with quick fixes to complicated problems. "Everybody feels good about this close," said David Axelrod, Obama's chief political strategist. "We are delivering the message we want to deliver, in the way we want to deliver it."

Clinton continued to defend her gas tax proposal, although she cast it in different terms, suggesting it was part of a broader strategy to reduce oil prices in the short term, while suggesting that Obama and other critics are out of touch with American voters.

"My opponent, Senator Obama, he disagrees with me. . . . And he's always going on TV, and he's always saying, 'Oh, you know, that's just like $20,' " she said in Merrillville. "Well, you know, for a lot of people $20 is something, right? Twenty dollars means something."

Bacon was traveling with the Clinton campaign.