With Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton neck and neck, and Mike Huckabee and John McCain campaigning for the Republican nomination, North Carolina’s late vote could make an impact, according to associate professor of political science Steven Greene.
The remaining primaries are reasonably competitive, Greene said, and for North Carolina not to play a role in the primaries, either Obama or Clinton would have to have huge victories in Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
“If Obama wins Texas, Hillary is done,” Greene said. “But I don’t see her giving up.”
According to Greene, Clinton will campaign until the end.
Michael Cobb, political science professor, agreed.
“She will be fine so long as a tidal wave doesn’t emerge for Obama,” Cobb said in an e-mail. “She will win major states like Ohio and Texas, but I don’t see any one state knocking her out.”
Cobb said if she lost two major states on the same day that she was expected to win, then that might be enough to end her campaign.
But Cobb disagreed with Greene’s assessment that North Carolina will have a big impact on who gets elected because North Carolina’s May 6 primary is so late in the game.
He said the nation will either already know the most likely winner at that point, which seems unlikely, or the delegate count from North Carolina will not be sufficient enough to determine a winner.
“If anything, Obama has a lot of momentum, especially in terms of raising money,” he said. “If something breaks one way or another, it will likely be to his advantage. But again, North Carolina has little to say about it.”
Greene predicted Obama would win North Carolina.
“Both Clinton and Obama are going to campaign a lot in North Carolina because North Carolina has the most amount of delegates in the eight last primaries, but Obama will probably win since he has performed better than Clinton in southern states,” he said.
Both Greene and Cobb agreed N.C. State students will most likely vote for Obama.
According to Cobb, although NCSU has more of a Republican student body, Obama seems to do better with the younger demographics.
Ordinarily students wouldn’t vote in the primaries, according to Cobb, but this time Greene said he thinks they will since it will make such an impact. Grady O’Brien, a freshman in history, said he probably won’t vote in the primary.
“As of now, it is so far off, I am not really thinking about it too much,” O’Brien said. “It will depend if the race is still close closer to the primary, and if it is, I will definitely go out and vote.”
Cassi Broglio, a freshman in First Year College, had a different perspective.
“I’m going to vote whether it makes a difference or not,” Broglio said.
