GULFPORT -- In Tuesday's primaries, Sen. Hillary Clinton won four of six South Mississippi counties, but Sen. Barack Obama won the state.
Obama won Jackson and Harrison Counties, and Clinton claimed victories in Hancock, George, Stone and Pearl River Counties. The Mississippi primary was called for Obama less than an hour after polls closed, capping off about a week of intense campaigning across the Magnolia State.
Heading into the elections most of the forecasts had Obama winning easily. The Associated Press reported nine in 10 black voters went for Obama, and three-fourths of white voters picked Clinton.
Marty Wiseman, executive director of the John C. Stennis Institute of Government at Mississippi State University, said Mississippi followed the trend in the other Deep South states and voted for Obama. The Illinois senator has won many small states; the larger ones have mostly gone to Clinton.
Wiseman said the intense campaign here got a lot of positive publicity for the state, and he believes it will continue, as a presidential debate will be held at the University of Mississippi this fall.
"We got some good time in the media for four or five days," Wiseman said. "I have talked to no end to journalists and media types who said they were surprised at how much the state had changed since they were here last."
Wiseman said he doesn't believe the Democratic race will be settled in Pennsylvania, the site of the next primary, where 158 proportional delegates are up for grabs, unless Obama wins big there. Early polls show Clinton leading in Pennsylvania.
But the race could be settled if Michigan and Florida are ordered to redo their primaries, Wiseman said.
Clinton, who campaigned hard in Mississippi, enlisting the help of her husband as well as her daughter, fell a little deeper in the hole Tuesday. She had gained new life last week with primary victories in Texas and Ohio. By Mississippi's elections Tuesday both candidates had started to campaign in Pennsylvania, where they will battle for six weeks until the vote.
At press time Obama had gathered 20 of Mississippi's 33 delegates in unofficial reports. In the overall delegate count Obama leads 1,402 to 1,240.
Obama had about 59 percent of the vote in the state as some precincts were still being counted at press time.
Harrison County saw good turnout; nearly 18,000 voted in the presidential primary Tuesday, compared with a little more than 3,200 in 2004. Tuesday's elections ran smoothly, Circuit Clerk Gayle Parker said.
Turnout seemed to be light in Hancock County, but many there voted for Clinton. Hancock County elections officials said one precinct where normally about 1,800 voters show up only produced 300 ballots Tuesday.
In Jackson County, where turnout was relatively high, Obama won by nearly 2,000 votes.
The Riverfront Community Center in downtown Moss Point is one of 12 polling places in the city and by 4:30 p.m. more than 500 people had voted, most of them Democrat. Poll workers Karen Fountain and Ada Street considered it a strong turnout and pointed to the fact that the after-work crowd was just beginning to come in.
Donald Richardson, in his shipyard overalls, voted right after work.
"I think it's time for a change in America," Richardson said, "whether it be a black president or a woman, we need it."
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