Tuesday’s vote in Indiana could swing nomination

The Indiana Democratic presidential primary hasn’t mattered since 1968, but now, it seems, the Hoosier state is the center of the known universe.\nWhen Hoosiers go to the polls on Tuesday, they could very well be deciding who wins the Democratic presidential nomination, said Indiana political watcher Andy Downs.\nRecent polls suggest that Hillary Clinton is slightly ahead here after trailing her opponent Barack Obama. But it’s still anybody’s game, he said.\nA win here for Obama could effectively shut down Clinton’s bid for the nomination and counter her arguments that she is the stronger candidate, said Downs, the director of the Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne.\nIf Clinton takes home Indiana, she’ll have momentum going into the remaining primaries and a victory in the only state bordering Obama’s home of Illinois, he said.\nDuring a campus visit last week, Obama implored a 13,000-strong crowd, made up of mostly students, to hit the polls.\n“I need every Indiana student to vote for me,” he said.\nMore than 5,500 people are registered to vote in the precincts surrounding the IU campus, most of them students. It’s a small portion of the 4.3 million Hoosiers who are eligible to cast their ballots in the \nDemocratic primary.\nBut when residents of Guam voted in a caucus, Obama won the tiny island territory by just seven ballots.\nAnd both candidates have pushed hard for student votes in Bloomington. At the end of March, former President Bill Clinton’s stump speech for the former First Lady drew about 6,500 people, most of them students. At the beginning of April, the Obama campaign sponsored a Dave Matthews concert attended by thousands of students. During Little 500 weekend, Obama made an unannounced visit to the women’s race and shook hands as hundreds of adoring students screamed his name. And Hillary Clinton appeared on campus the week before Obama, drawing about 5,000 attendees, though relatively few students.\nBut it’s more than visits. The Obama campaign has organized informal shuttles to give students a ride to and from the polls for early voting. And both campaigns have active student groups on campus.\nTo be sure, IU students seem much more inclined to vote \nfor Obama.\nCase in point: Senior Dan Corson-Knowles turned out to see Hillary Clinton speak, but said he was definitely leaning toward Obama and believes Clinton is too far inside Washington politics to make any real changes.\nHowever, the state seems like it might be leaning the other way. A survey commission by the Mike Downs Center of nearly 700 likely Democratic voters that was released Friday showed that 52 percent support Clinton and 45 percent support Obama. This stands in contrast to a poll released by the same organization just two weeks ago that gave Obama a five-point lead.\nAmong five polls conducted by various organizations in May, three gave Clinton the lead, one gave Obama the lead and one had them evenly tied.\nNationally, Obama has 1,736 delegates and superdelegates in his court and Clinton has 1,602, according to The Associated Press.\nIndiana has 84 delegates at stake. North Carolina goes to the polls on the same day. That state has 134 delegates and despite Clinton’s advances, Obama is favored to win.