Obama wins landslide victory

Barack Obama won more votes than the other candidates put together to take victory in South Carolina's Democratic primary election.The 46-year-old Illinois senator told his supporters "we can heal this nation" with a strong message of change and hope as he won more than 50 per cent of the southern state's votes.Former US first lady Hillary Clinton, who won in New Hampshire, Michigan and Nevada, came in second and quickly left the state as she moved her attention to next month's Super Tuesday, when more than 20 states go to the polls.In his victory speech in Columbia, South Carolina, Mr Obama said: "The choice in this election is not between regions, or religions, or genders."It's not about rich versus poor, young versus old, and it is not about black versus white. This election is about the past versus the future."Exit polls showed about half the voters in the state were black and four out of five of them supported Mr Obama, who is aiming to be the first African American president of the United States.Mr Obama, who won his first victory in the Iowa caucuses, used his speech to look ahead to Super Tuesday and to try to rise above the arguments between his campaign and that of Mrs Clinton over the past week."In nine days, in nine short days, nearly half the nation will have the chance to join us in saying we are tired of business-as-usual in Washington, we are hungry for change and we are ready to believe again," he said.Black women turned out in particularly large numbers and the first-term Illinois senator got a quarter of the white vote while Mrs Clinton and Mr Edwards split the rest.Analysis of the exit polls also showed Mr Obama appealed to well-educated, younger voters.© Independent Television News Limited 2008. All rights reserved.

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ITN | January 27, 2008

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