All recent polls have given Senator Obama a commanding lead in the North Carolina Democratic Primary. Since late March, his average poll numbers has consistently been at least 10 points higher than the average poll numbers of Clinton. (It is yet unclear how Hillary Clinton’s victory in Pennsylvania will affect their poll numbers in North Carolina.) About one in every three NC Democratic voters are African-Americans, and they are expected to vote for Obama overwhelmingly. (In the Pennsylvania primary, about 90% of the black voters went for Obama.) While Senator Clinton leads Obama among White voters in North Carolina in some polls, her margin of advantage is much more modest. With Obama’s overwhelming advantage in internet-based fund raising, he is also expected to vastly outspend Senator Clinton.
Nevertheless, the North Carolina primary remains important to this presidential election. The key concern is the total popular votes for the entire primary season. While Clinton cannot catch up with Obama in elected delegates, she can potentially overtake him in popular votes casted. If Senator Clinton loses in both delegates and popular votes, most super-delegates will be very reluctant to give her the nomination. If she wins the popular votes, however, it might provide enough political cover for many super-delegates to vote for her.
After her Pennsylvania victory, Clinton has already asserted that she has won more popular votes than Obama, counting Florida and Michigan. The most reasonable approach is probably to forget Michigan (where Obama was not on the ballot) but count Florida. In that scenario, she is only about 200,000 votes behind. Thus, if Clinton manages to lose not by much in North Carolina, and win enough in Indiana, she might very well end the primary season as the winner of total popular votes. After Puerto Rico Democratic Party switched from caucus to primary, this is becoming an increasingly realistic possibility for Clinton.