Tsunami

Obama and McCain Sweep 3 Primaries

WASHINGTON — Senator Barack Obama rolled to victory by large margins in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia on Tuesday, extending his winning streak over Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to eight Democratic nominating contests.

The outcome provided him his first chance to assert that the Democratic race, which had seemed to be heading into a protracted standoff, is beginning to break in his direction. And it left Mrs. Clinton facing weeks in which she has few opportunities for the kind of victory that would alter the race in her favor after a string of defeats notable not just for their number but also their magnitude.

In Tuesday’s contests, Mr. Obama showed impressive strength among not only the groups that have backed him in earlier contests — blacks, younger voters, the affluent and self-described independents — but also among older voters, women and lower-income people, the core of Mrs. Clinton’s support up to now, according to exit polls. Mr. Obama also won majorities of white men and Hispanic voters in Virginia, though not in Maryland.

With almost all precincts reporting, Mr. Obama won 75 percent of the vote in the District of Columbia and 64 percent in Virginia. He had 60 percent of the vote in Maryland with results from 67 percent of the precincts.

On the Republican side, Senator John McCain won in Virginia over Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, virtually eliminating any threat that Mr. Huckabee might have posed to Mr. McCain’s status as his party’s all but certain nominee.

Mr. Huckabee got a boost from conservative and evangelical Christian voters in the state, but not enough to overcome support among moderates and nonevangelical Christians for Mr. McCain, who won 50 percent of the vote. Mr. McCain also prevailed in the District of Columbia, with 68 percent of the vote, and in Maryland, where he had 55 percent of the vote with 67 percent of the precincts reporting.

He said of Mr. Huckabee, “He certainly keeps things interesting — maybe a little too interesting at times tonight, I must confess.”

Mr. McCain turned his attention to attacks on his Democratic opponents, saying they “promise a new approach to governing but offer only the policies of a political orthodoxy that insists the solution to government’s failures is to simply make it bigger.”

In all, 168 pledged delegates were at stake for the Democrats and 116 for the Republicans. The Democrats will divide delegates proportionally to the candidates’ vote statewide and at the Congressional level while the Republican races are winner-take-all.

Mr. Obama’s victories gave him a lead over Mrs. Clinton among pledged delegates, according to preliminary counts by the Obama campaign and some news organizations. Obama aides calculate that he also leads in delegate counts that include so-called superdelegates, the party officers and elected officials who control 20 percent of the total delegates to the Democratic convention.


Hillary is currently in full retreat mode. She all but conceded the Potomac primaries to her challenger and is now concentrating on Texas and Ohio, hoping that the two primaries will act as a firewall to the Obama tsunami.

That strategy didn't work for Giuliani. It won't work for her.