Obama, Clinton Face New Tests in White House Duel

WASHINGTON—Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton faced critical tests in their grueling White House duel on Tuesday, as millions of voters in Indiana and North Carolina cast ballots in the latest Democratic showdowns.

The two states, with a combined 187 delegates to the August nominating convention at stake, are the biggest prizes left in the race to pick the party's presidential candidate in November's election. After Tuesday, only six contests remain.

Obama and Clinton appear headed to a split of the two states. Obama leads opinion polls in North Carolina and Clinton is favored in Indiana.

Democratic presidential hopeful New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton addresses a campaign event at the Fire Department Station #2 in Merrillville, Indiana. (Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images)

"I think it's going to be close. I don't think anybody really knows exactly what's going to happen," Obama told reporters in Greenwood, Indiana, as he visited a diner for breakfast.

A pair of losses would be disastrous for Clinton, the New York senator and former first lady who is struggling to overtake Obama in the White House race.

She has cut Obama's advantage in North Carolina to single digits in most polls over the past few weeks. The two run close in polls in Indiana, where Clinton has a slight edge.

"Every race is filled with the unexpected. It's like life. You never know what's going to happen," Clinton, who would be the first woman U.S. president, told reporters during a visit to the Indianapolis speedway.

Her campaign chairman, Terry McAuliffe, predicted on MSNBC that Clinton would win Indiana. "And I think we're closing very fast in North Carolina," he said.

Polls in both states were scheduled to close in Indiana at 7 p.m. EDT (2300 GMT) and in North Carolina at 7:30 p.m. EDT (2330 GMT), with results expected soon afterward.

Obama Leads in Delegates

Obama, an Illinois senator, has an almost unassailable lead in pledged delegates who will help select the Democratic nominee to face Republican John McCain in November.

If Obama wins in both Indiana and North Carolina on Tuesday, it would end Clinton's slender hopes of catching him in either delegates or popular votes won in the nomination battle and spark renewed calls for her to step aside.

Clinton victories in both states could fuel doubts about Obama's electability and persuade some superdelegates—party insiders free to back any candidate at the nominating convention—to move toward her.

Neither can win enough delegates to clinch the race before voting ends on June 3, leaving the decision to the nearly 800 superdelegates.

A split decision leaves the race largely unchanged before the last six contests, with 217 delegates at stake.

Obama has struggled through a rough campaign stretch after last month's loss to Clinton in Pennsylvania, dogged by a furor over his comments on "bitter" small-town residents and a controversy over his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, has been backed by nine out of 10 black voters in other states, and is expected to benefit from a strong turnout in North Carolina, where African-Americans could make up more than one-third of those casting ballots in the Democratic primary.

The two Democrats, courting working- and middle-class voters suffering from an ailing economy and high gas prices, spent much of the past few days focusing on Clinton's proposal to lift the federal gasoline tax for the summer.

Obama and many economists called the plan a political gimmick that would save little money for most families, but Clinton launched an advertisement in both states questioning her rival's stance.

"What has happened to Barack Obama?" an announcer asks. "He is attacking Hillary's plan to give you a break on gas prices because he doesn't have one."

Clinton says a suspension of the tax during June, July and August, when many Americans take vacations, would help people deal with record gas prices in a faltering economy. There is little chance Congress will take up any gas tax proposal this year.

Obama released his own advertisement saying Clinton offered "more of the same old negative politics." He said the gas tax holiday was a dishonest approach to a real problem.