Obama nets wins in Oregon and pledged delegate count

By Kimberly Chin
Assistant News Editor

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) had coasted two wins for the night: Oregon's primary, news sources projected, and a majority of the pledged delegates of the nomination. Obama had 51 delegates up for grabs from Kentucky, but Clinton won the state with a more than 30 point lead.

Before Tuesday, Obama needed only 17 delegates to gain the majority, according to The Associated Press.

David Axelrod, Obama's lead campaign strategist, called Obama's pledged delegate majority gain an "important milestone" in the campaign and in the path leading to the Democratic nomination.

The polls in Oregon closed at 11 p.m. EST, and it was projected that Obama won the Beaver state by a slim margin. At 65 percent of precincts reporting, the trend in the polls had kept a steady distance from about 58 percent for Obama and 41 percent for Clinton.

Although Obama leads Clinton in pledged and superdelegates, states won and the popular vote, he did not dismiss her during a speech on Tuesday.

“No matter how this primary ends," Obama said, "Senator Clinton has shattered myths and broken barriers and changed the America in which my daughters and your daughters will come of age.”

Clinton's chances for winning the nomination are slim and it would take a share of about 800 superdelegates to get the edge needed to beat Obama, according to CNN.

Also the claim by her campaign that she has the most popular votes can fall out, if the Democratic National Committee chooses not to count Florida and Michigan, two states who went against the rules of the committee and lost their delegates as a result. Clinton's lead in the popular vote count would also exclude caucus votes, which Obama has fared well in.

“From the very beginning, you knew that this journey wasn’t about me or any of the other candidates in this race,” Obama told supporters on Tuesday when he returned to Iowa, the first in the nation caucus state that he had won of his presidential nomination campaign.

“It’s about whether this country — at this defining moment — will continue down the same road that has failed us for so long or whether we will seize this opportunity to take a different path: to forge a different future for the country we love.”