With 180 of 184 of precincts reporting, Clinton held the narrowest of leads — 65,845 votes, or 43 percent, to Obama’s 65,728 votes, or 42.9 percent, according to preliminary returns provided by Democratic Party Chairman Brian Colon.
Clinton and Obama are vying for New Mexico’s 26 delegates to the Democratic National Convention.
Colon said results from four precincts were being delayed — three in Rio Arriba County and one in Sandoval County — because the county chairpeople could not be reached. More than 16,000 provisional ballots also remained to be tallied.
New Mexico’s tight contest was a slice of a coast-to-coast Super Tuesday battle in which the two Democrats were vying to become their party’s nominee.
In New Mexico, voters met with long lines after a greater-than-expected turnout surprised party officials and polling sites across the state were short of ballots on caucus day.
“The turnout’s off the charts,” Colon said at party headquarters in Albuquerque. “We’re just thrilled and overwhelmed with the turnout.”
Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, chairwoman of Clinton’s campaign in New Mexico, said, “It’s a very tight race. It looks like it’s going to be a long night.”
Denish said the provisional ballots were the “big unknown” in naming a winner.
As of early Wednesday, there were about 16,870 provisional ballots cast. Colon said counting the provisional ballots would not begin until noon Wednesday (2 p.m. ET). He could not say how long counting the provisionals would take.
Provisional ballots are given to voters who show up to the wrong site, whose names are not on registered voter lists provided by the state or those who requested an absentee ballot, but signed an affidavit saying they did not return it, Colon said.
Statewide, provisional ballots accounted for 10 to 12 percent of all votes cast, he said.
Trevor Fitzgibbon, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, said before the early results were announced, that the campaign was “very encouraged about the turnout.
“The voters in New Mexico have the power to make history today for Barack Obama, because he’s the one who can make change happen,” he said. The Obama campaign declined to comment immediately on the early results.
Gov. Bill Richardson credited the last-minute blitz of candidate visits for the big turnout, which he said indicated an “enormous thirst for change.”
“The turnout today, nationally and in New Mexico, in my judgment shows that Democrats are going to have a good day in November, when we elect the president,” Richardson said at a news conference Tuesday night.
Richardson also predicted a very close race in New Mexico between Clinton and Obama, “within one or two percent either way.”
In polling places in Bernalillo and on Albuquerque’s west side, hundreds of people waited for 45 minutes to two hours to cast their votes.
Monica Fresquez of Bernalillo voted with her 87-year-old mother, Martha. Monica Fresquez attributed their two-hour wait to very disorganized volunteers working the polls.
“They should have opened at 7 o’clock this morning. There are hundreds of people in line. This is ridiculous,” she said.
According to preliminary results from exit polls of New Mexico Democrats leaving caucus voting sites, there was a strong racial and ethnic influence in the voting. Hillary Rodham Clinton ran strongly among Hispanics — men as well as women. White, non-Hispanic voters, regardless of gender, favored Barack Obama.
The exit poll also showed that Obama was the clear favorite of liberal Democrats; Clinton led slightly among self-described moderates, who often are swing voters in general elections in New Mexico.
New Mexico’s Democrats likely would have leaned heavily toward their hugely popular two-term governor, Richardson, who campaigned for the Democratic nomination for several months. But he never cracked into the top tier, fared poorly in Iowa and New Hampshire contests in early January, and abandoned his campaign on Jan. 10.
Richardson’s name remained on New Mexico’s ballot, but he had less than 1 percent of the vote with 69 of 184 precincts reporting.
That left the state wide open, and with Richardson refusing to endorse either of his rivals, New Mexicans saw more aggressive campaigning in the days leading up to Tuesday.
Obama, who was a relative unknown in New Mexico, had an uphill race, especially among Hispanic voters. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy said in an AP interview before stumping for him last week that New Mexico Hispanics “don’t know Barack Obama well.”
Clinton had traveled here with President Bill Clinton and was well known to many of the state’s political elite, as well as voters. She collected endorsements from many of the state’s top politicians, including Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez and former Gov. Bruce King. Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr. also endorsed the former first lady.
Obama’s endorsements included state Treasurer James Lewis, former Attorney General Patricia Madrid, former Democratic National Committee chairman Fred Harris and former Albuquerque mayor Jim Baca.
The campaigns also raced to set up offices in the state’s largest cities once Richardson withdrew, and they signed up thousands of volunteers to knock on doors and place phone calls in get-out-the-vote efforts. Obama volunteers knocked on about 80,000 doors in the past week. The Clinton campaign collected 10,000 signatures from supporters over the same period.
Obama’s events tended to attract many younger voters, while Clinton’s seemed to draw more of a middle-age crowd.
Clinton supporters stressed her experience and their dream of seeing a woman running the White House. Her detractors questioned her electability in the general election and criticized early negative campaigning from her and Bill Clinton.
Obama’s African-American heritage made his candidacy historic, but his supporters seemed most attracted by his youthfulness and his promise of change for a country jaded by politics as usual in Washington.
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