Senator Hillary Clinton of New York was projected by all U.S. TV networks to handily win Sunday's Democratic presidential primary in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico.
But her rival, Barack Obama of Illinois, will pick up some delegates in primary and is approaching the number of delegates needed to win the party's presidential nomination.
Polling was closed after 1900 GMT in Puerto Rico, and the final vote count will be available about three hours later.
Politico, a Washington newspaper covering political events, suggests there are several things to watch in the primary.
First, watch San Juan area, which is home to about half of Puerto Rico's nearly 4 million residents and it represents Obama's best hope for keeping Clinton from running up the score.
Then the income factor. Obama led Clinton by 5 percentage points among Puerto Ricans who earn at least 18,000 U.S. dollars a year (the threshold for the wealthiest 30 percent of Puerto Ricans), according to a poll released May 24 by Univisin-Puerto Rico and El Vocero.
But Obama trailed Clinton by 21 percentage points among those who earn less than 18,000 dollars a year.
Thirdly, there is a question about the turnout. Will it break 700,000?
Former president Bill Clinton admits his wife's campaign needs a turnout of more than 700,000 voters to claim a substantial victory in Puerto Rico.
The Clinton campaign would rather win a lower percentage point victory with very high turnout -- because it boosts her popular vote argument with superdelegates -- than a landslide percentage with low turnout.
Finally, watch the racial calculus. Clinton has fared better than Obama with Hispanic voters.
And her campaign will argue that a big win in Puerto Rico bolsters its case to superdelegates that Obama has a problem with Hispanics that could make it difficult for him to beat Republican senator John McCain in key states in the general election.
But Obama's biracial background could be an asset in Puerto Rico, where 12 percent of residents describing themselves as mixed race and 8 percent as black.
Obama is the son of a white mother from Kansas and a black father from Kenya, and he has run ads in Puerto Rico highlighting his formative years in Hawaii in an effort to forge common cause with the islanders.
Source:Xinhua
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