WASHINGTON - Sen. Barack Obama was projected to add to his string of recent victories with a substantial triumph over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in Virginia’s Democratic presidential primary, NBC News reported Tuesday. In the Republican primary, NBC said the race between Sen. John McCain and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee was too close to call.
Voters in Maryland and the District of Columbia also were going to the polls Tuesday.
With 168 delegates at stake on Tuesday, Obama hoped to build on the lead that he has gained on Clinton in the past week in NBC News' delegate count.
In polling place interviews, more than eight in 10 voters in Virginia and Maryland said the country is ready to elect either a black or a woman to the White House.
Blacks made up more than a third of the Democratic electorate in Maryland, slightly less in Virginia. Obama, hoping to become the first black president, has consistently polled over 80 percent among African-American voters in primaries this year.
The surveys were conducted by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International for NBC News, the other television networks and The Associated Press. No survey was conducted in the District of Columbia.
The Illinois senator won a string of contests in all regions of the country over the weekend, routing Clinton in a Louisiana primary as well as caucuses in Nebraska, Washington state and Maine.
Many new voters in Virginia In Virginia, the parties were holding binding primaries on the same day for the first time.
Turnout was described as heavy across the state, with waits as long as 90 minutes in the Richmond area, NBC affiliate WWBT reported. State election officials said they expected even longer lines in the evening as people showed up to vote after work.
More than a third of voters in the Virginia Democratic primary said they had not voted in a primary before, as did almost one in five voters in the Maryland Democratic primary, according to the exit interviews.
In the Roanoke area of southwest Virginia, there was some confusion after a weekend wind storm knocked out electricity to about 50 polling places.
Susan Pollard, a spokeswoman for the state Board of Elections, said the board worked with utility companies to get power restored to as many polling places as possible, but eight had to be moved at the last minute.
In Baltimore, where Obama was expected to do especially well, NBC affiliate WBAL quoted city and county officials as describing the turnout as “slow and steady.” Statewide, Maryland elections administrator Linda Lamone projected an overall turnout of 39 percent, with 44 percent turnout for the Democratic primary and 29 percent for the Republicans.
Icy winter weather in the region threw a wild card into the mix.
Hagerstown, in northern Maryland near the border with Pennsylvania, was under a winter weather advisory. A messy mix of freezing rain, sleet and snow was making travel difficult and closing numerous schools, NBC affiliate WHAG reported.
Washington also reported freezing rain, but turnout did not appear to be affected. NBC affiliate WRC said officials were reporting heavy turnout.