Clinton tweets that she won Kentucky primary
But Sanders takes win in Oregon contest.
With almost 100% of the precincts reporting, the Democratic presidential primary in Kentucky between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders was down to the wire Tuesday night.
Clinton led Sanders late Tuesday by less than one-half of 1 percent — 212,205 to 210,424 votes. Clinton claimed victory in a tweet, saying: “We just won Kentucky! Thanks to everyone who turned out. We’re always stronger united.”
Sanders and Clinton traded the lead throughout the vote count, which at one point held a margin of just 126 ballots. Both candidates had about half the vote.
Clinton was trying to recapture not only her momentum across the nation but also the Clinton family magic that made Bill Clinton the last Democrat to win Kentucky in a presidential race and gave Hillary Clinton a huge victory over Barack Obama in 2008. While a defeat would do little to diminish her delegate lead over Sanders, it would magnify her difficulty in unifying the Democratic Party.
Entering Tuesday’s contests, Clinton led Sanders by nearly 300 pledged delegates. When superdelegates — elected officials and party leaders free to support either candidate — are factored in, her lead is much larger and brings her to within 150 delegates away of the 2,383 needed to clinch the Democratic nomination, according to the Associated Press.
In the final round of state primaries next month, Clinton holds a 10-point lead in California, according to the RealClearPolitics average of polls, where 475 pledged delegates will be at stake.
Kentucky Republicans chose Donald Trump as their nominee in a March 5 caucus.
In other voting Tuesday in Oregon, Trump won the Republican primary, and Sanders took the Democratic contest.
In Kentucky, 55 Democratic delegates were up for grabs. The state’s Democrats also have five superdelegates, two of whom have already pledged their support to Clinton. Two others have not said who they would vote for, and a fifth superdelegate has not been named.
The race between Clinton, a former first lady, secretary of State and senator, and Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont, is the first truly contested Democratic primary in Kentucky since the Bluegrass State took part in the 1988 Super Tuesday. Obama barely visited the state in 2008 and had essentially locked up the nomination before Kentucky’s primary.
Over the last two weeks this time, Clinton and her husband made numerous stops across the state, drawing small-to-medium size crowds as they crisscrossed the state.
Sanders’ largest event was two weeks ago when he drew about 7,000 people to Waterfront Park in Louisville, the same night he won the Indiana primary across the river.
It was somewhat reminiscent of the huge crowd that Obama drew to the Kentucky International Convention Center in the days leading up to the 2008 primary. That didn’t help him as Clinton, powered by a stronger organization and multiple campaign stops across the state, carried the state 66% to 30%.
Clinton, during a town hall meeting in Columbus, Ohio, said she was “going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business,” while trying to explain her plan to sink $30 billion into Appalachia to rebuild the economy. Her opponents seized on those words, which appear to have harmed her. Sanders beat her 51% to 36% in West Virginia.