Obama Becomes Clear Democratic Frontrunner

Barack Obama last night established himself as the clear front runner for the Democratic nomination, winning primary contests in and around Washington DC by overwhelming margins over Hillary Clinton.

The crushing defeats for Clinton brought new signs of disarray within her camp including the resignation of her deputy campaign manager, Michael Henry. As the results came in, her campaign worked the telephones in an effort to reassure donors that she remained a viable candidate.Early returns gave Obama 62% against 37% for Clinton in Virginia - the one state where she had hoped to remain competitive. He was projected to win on an equally large scale in Washington DC, according to exit polls.

Voting in Maryland, where Obama also was expected to do well, had to be extended by 90 minutes because of the high turnout and poor weather that turned roads and pavements to ice.On the Republican side, John McCain faced a much tougher fight than expected against Mike Huckabee in Virginia. With half of precincts reporting, McCain was ahead by 47% over 45% for Huckabee.

The close finish was a further sign of dissatisfaction with McCain from a core Republican constituency: evangelicals, who make up 40% of party supporters in Virginia. Exit polls also suggested a close contest in Washington DC.

With last night's results, Obama now has a long string of victories over Clinton in the last week. He also has a measurable lead over Clinton in elected delegates.

That fresh burst of momentum threatens to overwhelm Clinton's plan of making a last stand in the mega states of Texas and Ohio on March 4. Last night's convincing wins for Obama also complicate the Clinton's fall back plan of winning a large share of super delegates, senior party officials who are free agents in the Democratic contest. The scale of Obama's victories, as well as signs that he is expanding his support into a more broadly based coalition, exposed growing problems for Clinton.

With last night's performances, Obama began for the first time to bite into Clinton's support base. That could siphon off crucial support ahead of key contests next month which her campaign are already projecting as her last stand.Obama last night registered his strongest performance so far among white voters - without giving up his dominance among African-American voters.

He also for the first time began to make huge inroads the constituencies Clinton could normally take for granted: white women and working-class households at the bottom of the economic ladder.In the Republican race, the primaries confirmed the problems that John McCain has with his party base. While he is still on course to secure - eventually - the Republican nomination, the close finish in Virginia is a huge embarrassment for McCain. It was compounded by his losses in two contests - Louisiana and Kansas - to Huckabee at the weekend.

In Virginia, about 46% of those voting in the Republican race described themselves as Christian evangelicals. Of those, roughly 70% voted for Huckabee, a Baptist pastor.

Many other Republicans voted for Huckabee as a protest against McCain, who is viewed as too moderate. McCain, the senator for Arizona, has angered Republicans because he voted against tax cuts introduced by president George Bush and because he has shown a willingness to work alongside Democrats in the Senate.

After Mitt Romney pulled out off the Republican race last week, McCain declared himself to be the front runner. But Huckabee is spoiling McCain's run by staying in the party and is emerging as the champion of the talk-show hosts who are highly influential among Republicans.

The Clinton team had been braced for last night's defeats but the breakdown of the figures was worse than they could have anticipated.

In a crucial blow to Clinton, exit polls suggested that she had failed to win over the blue-collar voters who had previously supported John Edwards before his withdrawal from the Democratic race last month. Those votes are now going to Obama instead.

That was an indication that Obama for the first time had managed to broaden a coalition that - while piling up a string of victories in small states - could compete on equal footing with Clinton in traditional Democratic strongholds.

Obama's coalition until last night had been built round African Americans, and young people, as well as high-income and highly-educated whites. Last night, he matched her - and, in some cases, took a larger share of the vote - among white women and men and among the poor.

In Virginia, exit polls showed, as expected, he took 90% of African Americans, who accounted for 33% of the Democratic voters. But Obama and Clinton split the white vote: he took 48% of the white vote while she took 50%.

This contrasted with earlier contests in some of the Southern states in which he only succeeded in taking about 10% of the white vote.

Obama has been attracting some of the largest turn-outs yet for his rallies in DC, Maryland and Virginia - about 17,000 at one on Monday night. As usual, the majority of these were young and exit polls confirmed the almost messianic support he attracts among that age group. He took 80% of the vote among under-25s to her 20%.

Significantly, he beat her by 59% to 40% among those earning less than $50,000 (pounds 25,000). Until now, that constituency had split between Clinton and Edwards, until he left the race.

In Maryland, the exit polls showed much the same pattern, with the white vote split between them, with Obama taking 47% to Clinton's 49%.

The votes last night gave him a substantial advantage in the battle for delegates who could decide the nomination at the party convention in Denver in August.

Under the proportional system used by the Democrats, Obama will take the lion's share of Virginia's 101 delegates, DC's 38 and Maryland's 99.