Presidential breakdown

Although she lost to her main opponent, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, in last week's Lenoir County Democratic presidential primary, official vote totals released Tuesday showed a strong showing for New York Sen. Hillary Clinton among her core constituencies.

Although the national media had long predicted that Obama would win North Carolina, Kinston City Councilwoman Alice Tingle said Tuesday that she did not know what to expect going into the primary.

Tingle, who had hoped Clinton would win, said it is difficult to predict what voters will do.

"Until the count comes and the polls are closed, you just don't know," she said.

While Obama, who took 55 percent of the county vote and 56 percent of the statewide vote following the May 6 primary, carried Lenoir's black and urban voters, Clinton swept up the county's white voters and most of its rural voters.

Clinton won 41 percent of the county vote and about 42 percent of the state's vote, according to the State Board of Elections.

"I think a lot of us had a lot of surprises in this election," Tingle said.

Clinton and Obama, who have moved on to West Virginia's primary, each won half of Lenoir's 22 precincts by wide margins in most cases.

Vote totals, which included absentee, provisional and curbside ballots, showed Obama fared well in eight of Kinston's nine precincts - Clinton picked up the mostly white Kinston 4 precinct, which covers the northwest part of the city.

Obama also carried the Contentnea, Moseley Hall and Vance precincts, which serve rural northern Lenoir and have nearly even numbers of black and white registered voters.

In addition to the single Kinston precinct and the northern Institute precinct, Clinton won the nine precincts that serve southern Lenoir, La Grange and Pink Hill. Those precincts all have significantly more white registered voters.

Obama widened his lead in the county Tuesday, when data showed he picked up more than half of the absentee, curbside and provisional votes.

David Anderson can be reached at (252) 559-1077, or danderson@freedomenc.com