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Barack Obama never wanted his candidacy to be about race, but an extraordinary racial gap appeared to play a decisive role in his big North Carolina victory Tuesday.

According to exit polling in the Tar Heel State, Obama got 92 percent of the African-American vote — a record percentage for him in the Democratic primaries. Blacks made up a third of the state’s electorate.

Hillary Clinton’s continued advantage over Obama among white voters — who made up 62 percent of the total and voted 60 to 36 percent for her over Obama — was no match for the solid backing the Illinois senator got from blacks.

In Indiana, which has a much smaller African-American population at 15 percent, the story was much of the same. There, Obama won 92 percent of the African-American vote, and Clinton won 60 percent of white voters, who comprised 81 percent of the vote.

Exit polling indicated that race wasn’t the only factor that helped Obama narrow Clinton’s lead in Indiana and propel his win in North Carolina. He cut into her own constituencies — like lower-income voters, Catholics and those who said the economy was their most pressing issue.

The controversy surrounding Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, weighed on the minds of some voters. In both Indiana and North Carolina, nearly half the voters said the Wright issue was important to them, and a majority of those voters went for Clinton.

Bob Beckel, Democratic strategist and FOX News contributor, said Obama took a hit because of his former pastor in the Pennsylvania primary two weeks ago, but he believes the impact has reached its peak.

“I think it’s overstated,” he said of the race issue — whether it be the Wright factor or even the racial gap.

Beckel said blacks no doubt rallied behind Obama, especially after what he called the glut of attacks on the candidate in recent weeks, but he does not think the white-black divide will affect the general election.

“They’re talking about how he doesn’t get the white, working-class voters,” said Beckel, pointing out how Clinton attracted many Democrats on the themes of the economy, criticism of the Bush White House and campaigning on heartland values.

“These people went for that message, and they aren’t going to vote for John McCain in the fall,” he said.

Despite half the voters saying the Wright issue was important to them, a majority still said that Obama “shares their values,” an indication that he can not only cross racial lines, but isn’t as alien to Democrats as his opponents had painted him out to be, Beckel added.

“If Wright was going to be an issue, then where it would have shown up is in the ’shares their values’ question,” he said.

Undecided superdelegate Muriel Offerman, of Cary, N.C., said she had wondered if the Wright controversy could have cost Obama her state and still questions what the racial divide will mean in the fall.

“This week I wasn’t sure how this was going to shake out because of the Jeremiah Wright thing and because President Clinton had been here so much,” she said in a telephone interview from her home, where she was watching coverage of Obama’s victory on television. Former President Bill Clinton visited small towns across North Carolina in support of his wife, including nine stops on the eve of the election.

“People want change and I think North Carolina is like some of the other states, that it’s just time for a change,” Offerman said. But she said Obama’s racially lopsided victory “is certainly a concern. And I think we all have our work cut out for us.”

FOX News’ Kelley Beaucar Vlahos and The Associated Press contributed to this report

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 7th, 2008 at 12:19 am and is filed under Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Indiana, North Carolina. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.