A month ago, strong support from women catapulted Hillary Clinton past Barack Obama in the New Hampshire primary, giving Clinton the momentum she desperately needed to revive her campaign.
Yesterday, Clinton was once again counting on women - white women, in particular - to give her the edge. They delivered in the key primary states she won, providing a critical advantage. She beat Obama among women by 10 points in New Jersey, 17 points in Massachusetts, 26 points in New York, and 30 points in Oklahoma, exit polls showed.
Overall, Obama led among men and Clinton led among women, although her advantage among women appeared smaller than was seen in early primary states. An exception was New York, which Clinton represents in the Senate. She won there among men and gained the support of 4 in 10 blacks.
In interviews yesterday in Massachusetts, women voters said they agonized over the choice between the two Democrats. Kristen Halkola, 41, a software administrator from Medford, said she was tempted to vote for Obama; the country is hungry, she said, for a leader who could unite the country behind a vision for its future. But she chose Clinton, concluding that the New York senator was better at bringing Republicans and Democrats together.
"She's reached across the aisle many, many times, to people who were the bitterest enemies, and worked out compromises."
Men overwhelmingly favored Obama in state exit polls, often by a larger margin than women did Clinton. But they represented a much smaller percentage of the overall electorate than women did, which diminished their importance.
But even among women, the racial divide that this primary contest has opened in the Democratic electorate overshadowed the gender gap. In every state where exit polling data were available last night, black women overwhelmingly voted for Obama, and they helped him carry states with a high percentage of black voters, including Alabama and Georgia.
Black women chose Obama over Clinton by a 7-to-1 margin in both Georgia and New Jersey, while Clinton finished 26 points ahead of Obama among white women in Georgia and 36 points ahead among white women in New Jersey. Obama carried Georgia, where black women made up 33 percent of the electorate; Clinton won New Jersey, where 14 percent of voters were black women.
Latino women, meanwhile, helped Clinton, voting for her over Obama by a 52 percentage-point margin in New York and by 32 points in New Jersey.
In Massachusetts, the percentage of black women voters was small - just 3 percent of the total electorate - and exit polls did not sample a sufficient number to provide a race and gender breakdown. But in interviews in Boston yesterday, black women overwhelmingly said they voted for Obama.
Those who said race factored into their decision said they were not necessarily voting for Obama because he would be the first black president; instead, they said they had decided not to vote for Clinton because of remarks that she and her husband had made about Obama that they perceived as racist.
In Roxbury, Renee Montgomery, 56, a piano teacher and nursing assistant, cast her vote for Obama because "we just need something fresh . . . someone who thinks about problems in a new way."
Montgomery also said she was disgusted with Bill Clinton's attempt to downplay the significance of Obama's South Carolina victory by noting Jesse Jackson had won the state twice. "I don't think Hillary Clinton is the woman I want to elect as the first woman president," said Montgomery.
Exit polling data reflecting age and gender were not available last night, but in interviews yesterday, a clear generational divide emerged. Janet Galvin, 50, a postal worker from Medford, chose Clinton. "Women are multitaskers," she said. "They're efficient, they're thorough."
Younger women seemed less convinced that being a woman gave Clinton any special merit.
"It would have been great to vote for a woman, but I have to look past gender sometimes and look at who is going to be best," said Obama supporter Kerri Zizzo, 23, a Medford resident who works as a court administrator.
Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.
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