WINSTED - Sen. Barack Obama won the state's Democratic primary Tuesday by a margin of 51 percent to 47, garnering a slim majority over his top competitor, Sen. Hillary Clinton, while Sen. John McCain took the state with a similar share of the vote, getting 52 percent and trouncing his nearest competitors, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who received 33 percent, and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee at 7 percent. Obama did far better in the Northwest Corner than in the rest of the state. In some towns, he bested Clinton, his only remaining rival, by 2-1 or more. Likewise, McCain fared better than Romney in the Northwest Corner by similar margins.
Despite the excitement of the close races, turnout in some towns was uncharacteristically low, perhaps because of the unsettled weather.
While the margins were not significant, Barack Obama and John McCain took the lead in the local primary elections.
In all, 3,291 voters turned out in Winsted, Colebrook, Barkhamsted and New Hartford, with 60 percent of the voters Democrats.
Obama held a pretty consistant margin over Clinton in each town, ranging from 13 to 21 percent, except Winsted, where Clinton pulled ahead by just 14 votes, a 2-percent margin.
On the Republican side, Winsted, New Hartford and Barkhamsted chose McCain as the winner, but by narrow margins. Romney won Colebrook over McCain by just six votes.
Mike Huckabee captured 3.8 percent of all the votes in the four towns, falling into third place on the Republican ticket. Ron Paul, Rudy Giuliani and Alan Keyes followed.
On the Democratic side, John Edwards came in third place with just 26 votes in all four towns, followed by Dennis Kucinich, Chris Dodd, Mike Gravel, Bill Richardson and Joe Biden.
Keyes and Biden each recieved one vote for the four towns combined.
