Clinton Thumps Obama in WV

On Tuesday, Hillary Clinton blew Barack Obama out of the water in the West Virginia primary. She won by an impressive margin of 67% to 26%. John Edwards, who was on the ballot, received 7% of the vote.

While this is an incredibly impressive win, she only netted about ten pledged delegates, and was expected to win by this kind of margin. Last nights results do not really change Clinton's bleak outlook in the race for the Democratic nomination.

The only thing this changes is the fact that she continues to carry white working-class voters overwhelmingly in must-win states like Pennsylvania and Ohio. Those were the voters that gave her such an incredible win last night.

She claims that she is the only one who can win these votes in November, and she is urging superdelegates to take that into consideration before they make an endorsement. I don't think that they'll care.

Now we look forward to the Oregon and Kentucky primaries that take place next Tuesday.

Kentucky is basically the same state as West Virginia, but with a larger black population, so expect a slightly smaller margin of victory for Clinton.

Oregon is likely to go for Obama by at least ten points (my guess would be more) according to recent polls. However, voting is done solely by mail over a one-month period, so that makes things a little harder to predict.

All in all, these two contests are likely to cancel each other out in terms of delegate gains, and each delegate for Obama brings him closer and closer to the nomination, and greatly minimizes Clinton's chances of winning it outright.