In Sweep, Obama Breaks Into Hillary's Base

With his wins yesterday in the three Potomac primaries, Barack Obama made stunning inroads into Hillary Clinton's base of support, the Washington Post reports. Obama won a majority of white voters in Virginia and Maryland, and also captured the support of 54% of Latinos, a traditional Clinton stronghold. He dominated all income brackets, education levels and religions, and won liberals, conservatives, and independents.

This crack in Clinton's coalition may mark a critical turning point in what was until now a tight race, the Post notes. The one group Clinton won were white women, but her 53% to 47% lead among those voters was not enough to make up for the 58% of white men who backed Obama. "It looks to me like the more Senator Obama wins, the broader the ranks of people who are supporting him are," Rep. Rick Boucher, a conservative Democrat from rural western Virginia, told the Post. (More Virginia stories.)