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Barack and Michelle Obama react to the crowd Tuesday night at the campaign's rally in Raleigh after winning the North Carolina primary. (AP Photo)

Barack Obama delivered a stiff setback to Hillary Clinton’s efforts to turn the tide of the Democratic race, winning the North Carolina primary by double digits Tuesday and holding Clinton to a narrow victory in Indiana.

Clinton showed no signs of letting up, but with his strong performance Obama extended his delegate and popular vote lead, and is poised to move ever closer to the nomination.

“Tonight we stand less than 200 delegates away from securing the Democratic nomination,” he told cheering supporters in Raleigh, N.C., Tuesday night.

With all precincts reporting in North Carolina, Obama led Clinton 56 to 42 percent.

Together the two states were the last big contests on the primary calendar and offered the final chance for the candidates to make a serious dent in the delegate counts.

Obama’s delegate haul edged him closer to his prize — 1,840 to 1,684 for Clinton in The Associated Press count. The Democratic candidates need 2,025 delegates to win the nomination.

Clinton was declared the winner in Indiana more than six hours after polls closed in the state.

Vote counts were held up by Lake County, which was hand-counting 11,000 absentee ballots. Eventually returns came in showing the county trending toward Obama, an indication that he could pull out an upset in the state. The county includes the heavily black city of Gary, near Obama’s home city of Chicago. Gary Mayor Rudy Clay, an Obama supporter, predicted a shocker as the votes were being tallied, but in the end Clinton won by 2 points, 51 percent to Obama’s 49 percent.

Earlier at her rally in Indianapolis, Clinton seemed undeterred by Obama’s commanding win in North Carolina or his strong performance in Indiana.

“Tonight we come from behind, we’ve broken the tie and thanks to you it’s full speed on to the White House,” Clinton said.

“A win is a win, on to West Virginia!” Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe said after all the results came in. West Virginia and five other states or territories still have contests left on the primary calendar.

A well-placed Clinton campaign source said the campaign suspected a little political sabotage in Gary, which is known for submitting its election results late.

“The mayor of Gary is a huge Obama supporter and we believe they are holding the votes in Lake County deliberately to keep Hillary Clinton from going out to speak. We believe we have it but that they want to delay her speech,” the source said, shortly before Clinton spoke.

Obama had already congratulated Clinton for what “appears to be her victory” earlier at his rally in Raleigh, N.C.

There he taunted the New York senator for saying last week that North Carolina would be a “game-changer.” Obama’s double digit lead effectively blocked Clinton from staging an election-day upset in the state.

“Today what North Carolina decided is the only game that needs changing is the one in Washington, D.C.,” he said.

“More importantly, because of you, we have seen that it’s possible to overcome the politics of division and the politics of distraction; that it’s possible to overcome the same old negative attacks that are always about scoring points and never about solving our problems. We’ve seen that the American people aren’t looking for more spin.”

Both candidates were faring well among bases usually loyal to their campaigns Tuesday.

In Indiana, Clinton’s advantage was based on groups that supported her in earlier primaries — white women, white working-class voters and rural voters.

The trend linking the New York senator with white voters with no college degree seemed to be continuing, according to exit polls. In Indiana, 65 percent of those voters went for Clinton, 34 percent for Obama. In North Carolina, 67 percent of those voters went for Clinton, 26 percent for Obama.

Clinton was winning among white men in both states, but it wasn’t enough to offset Obama’s solid support among young and black voters in North Carolina.

Overall, Obama led Clinton 56 to 42 percent in the state, with 100 percent of precincts reporting.

Obama was getting 92 percent of the black vote there. And college-educated voters were going for Obama over Clinton 55 percent to 42 percent in the state.

Polls consistently showed Obama ahead in North Carolina for weeks, but Clinton had recently closed his lead to single digits.

Obama’s campaign did not expect to win Indiana or fight Clinton to something close to a tie. The Obama camp also internally wondered if the outcome in North Carolina could be a low single-digit win or a margin of, at most, 10 points.

In both categories, Obama bested his own expectations.

John McCain, virtually uncontested for the GOP presidential nomination, also won both states’ Republican primaries.

Meanwhile, huge numbers of voters streamed to the polls in both states.

Polls at a few precincts in Indiana were kept open an hour late to accommodate the long lines of voters.

And a North Carolina elections official projected voters there would be “making history” in a state where nearly 500,000 voters cast early and absentee ballots by Monday — more than half of all votes cast in the 2004 primary.

FOX News’ Aaron Bruns, Major Garrett and Bonney Kapp and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 6th, 2008 at 6:58 pm and is filed under Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Indiana, North Carolina, Top Story. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.