Obama, McCain sweep Potomac primaries

While Sen. John McCain was inching toward the Republican presidential nomination, Sen. Barack Obama staked a claim as the Democratic front-runner.

Obama’s wins in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia primaries propelled him past Sen. Hillary Clinton in the race for delegates.

According to CNN calculations, Obama has 1,215 delegates to Clinton’s 1,190.

To clinch the Democratic nomination, a candidate must get 2,025 delegates.

Obama had led in pledged delegates, but Clinton had held the lead when superdelegates were factored in.

Superdelegates, a group of almost 800 Democratic Party officials and leaders, are not required to make their votes public and are free to change their minds.

The Illinois senator has now won eight consecutive contests.

McCain, the presumptive nominee for the Republican party, has 812 delegates to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s 217, according to CNN estimates.

GOP candidate needs 1,191 delegates to secure the nomination.

“The change we seek swept through Chesapeake and over the Potomac,” Obama told supporters Tuesday night.

“We won the state of Maryland. We won the commonwealth of Virginia. And though we won in Washington, D.C., this movement won’t stop until there is change in Washington, D.C., and tonight we’re on our way.”

Obama did well with Democrats across race and gender lines Tuesday night, and seems to be eating away at Clinton’s backbone of support: women.

According to exit polls out of Virginia and Maryland, Obama won roughly 60 percent of the female vote — a demographic that has carried Clinton to success in past primaries. Clinton fared worse among men — more than two-thirds in both states chose Obama.

Meanwhile, Obama scored his highest percentage of African-American support to date, winning close to 90 percent of that voting bloc in each state.

The two evenly split the white vote in Virginia, while Clinton slightly beat Obama among whites in Maryland.

In most past primaries, Clinton has held an edge among white voters. Tuesday, Obama even beat Clinton among Latino voters, a group that has heavily favored Clinton in most past primaries.

In Virginia and Maryland, Latinos went for Obama over Clinton by 6 points, though their support was not decisive in either contest — only 5 percent of Democratic primary voters in Virginia and 4 percent in Maryland were Latino.

The only demographic Clinton won was white women, who broke for her over Obama by 10 points in Virginia and 13 points in Maryland.

Clinton turned her attention to Texas, which holds its primary on March 4.

-from CNN.com