Delaware County "has the inner-ring suburbs with a significant number of African Americans who voted for a great African American candidate," Gov. Rendell told reporters yesterday. "That was the difference. If you're a Democrat in Chester you're a liberal, [or] if anything else a Republican or independent. It has the most liberal of all Democrats."
Tuesday's total turnout statewide in the Democratic primary was 54 percent of eligible voters - which may match the previous record of just under 55 percent in 1980, according to state election figures.
Overall, Clinton won 51.6 percent of the 434,000 votes cast in the four suburban counties.
"His only chance of winning the state was to win big in the Philly suburbs, and he fell down there," said G. Terry Madonna, director of the Franklin & Marshall College poll. "It was stunning."
Obama won in the Main Line communities of Lower Merion, Radnor and Tredyffrin, as well as in Rose Valley and Doylestown. But he lost in the Newtown townships (both the one in Delaware County and the one in Bucks County), and also in Upper and Lower Makefield.
Clinton, meantime, racked up solid majorities in many of the classic, post-World War II suburbs, including Bensalem, Bristol Township, Warminster and Warrington, Upper and Lower Southampton, and Springfield (Delaware County).
Analysts said that female voters in the suburbs rallied around Clinton. Women made up 58 percent of the Democratic primary electorate statewide, and they favored Clinton by 14 percentage points.
