COLLEGE PARK, Md. — Barack Obama hopes to build on his momentum today by sweeping three Democratic primaries, while rival Hillary Rodham Clinton needs to minimize potential losses and target upcoming contests where she can triumph.
Voter demographics in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C., with their healthy percentage of African-American and affluent white voters, favor the Illinois senator over Clinton, the New York senator.
But the Potomac Primary, as it’s known here, offers a total of 168 pledged Democratic delegates, compared with the 370 up for grabs March 4 in primaries in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont.
Expected to fare better in those states, analysts said, Clinton will need to bide her time until March and then win big to prevent Obama from surging ahead.
“If Clinton can hold the game relatively close for now and then surge in the bigger states, she’s got a strong chance of securing the nomination,” said Mark Rozell, a public-policy professor at George Mason University in Virginia. “The problem is the perception that Obama has all the momentum right now.
“Perception can become reality. That is what the Obama camp is hoping for right now.”
In the Republican field, John McCain needs to win Virginia by a healthy margin to show he has begun to bring right-wing conservatives into his fold, analysts said.
McCain lost Virginia to George W. Bush in the 2000 primary, when he referred to evangelical Christian leaders Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell as “agents of intolerance.”
“He has to win handily,” said Larry Sabato, the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
Candidates and their surrogates raced around the two states and Washington on Monday, following a weekend of campaign events.
Obama spoke at an early-morning town hall in Virginia, then rallied an estimated 17,000 people at the University of Maryland before heading to Baltimore for another event. His wife, Michelle, traveled to Maryland’s Eastern Shore, then to Bethesda, a suburb just outside Washington.
Former President Clinton held rallies in Maryland and Virginia, while the senator spoke to about 800 students and faculty at the University of Virginia.
After touring a General Motors plant in Baltimore, Hillary Clinton downplayed the projections that Obama would handily win the Potomac Primary.
“Before Super Tuesday, you all were reporting on all the momentum. It didn’t turn out to be true,” she told The Associated Press. “Let’s have the elections. Instead of talking about them, pontificating and punditing, let’s let people actually vote.”
At the University of Maryland rally, amid shouts of “Yes, we can” from the crowd, Obama referred only obliquely to Clinton.
“The last thing we need,” Obama said, “is having the same old cast of characters doing the same old thing and somehow expecting a different result.”
Obama then said he was “looking forward to mixing it up with John McCain,” and in a not-too-subtle reference to McCain’s age, 71, said, “I admire John McCain’s half a century of service to this country.”
Although the crowd at the Obama rally cheered resoundingly, not all in attendance were sure they were voting for Obama.
“I’m undecided even between parties,” said Doug Reilly, 41, of Frederick, Md., who said he’s a Republican-leaning voter but wanted to hear Obama.
“If you put Barack and John McCain, I’d still have to think about it,” Reilly said.
In Maryland and Washington, D.C., primary voters can vote only with their political party, and independents cannot vote. In Virginia, any registered voter can choose any candidate.
Janet Idelson, 55, of Annapolis, Md., is a registered Republican who will vote for McCain in the primary. But she’s leaning toward Obama in November if he wins the primary.
“I’m still not there yet,” Idelson said. But Obama is swaying her, she said. “Maybe it’s his execution. Maybe it’s his personality.”
