Huckabee, McCain about even in rural Louisiana

In this weekend's only presidential primary election (as opposed to caucuses), Republicans Mike Huckabee and John McCain ran about even among Louisiana's rural voters but Huckabee narrowly carried the state because he won the suburbs, according to the National Election Pool exit poll. In the Democratic race, Barack Obama carried all three geographic categories.

Huckabee got 43 percent of the statewide vote while McCain got 42 percent. (Since no candidate got at least 50 percent, party rules say no delegates will be awarded until a state convention next weekend.) Huckabee carried suburbs 48 to 37 percent, while McCain carried cities 55-31, but the poll said suburbs had 59 percent of the vote.

In rural precincts, only 19 percent of the poll, McCain ran ahead 44-41, well within the error margin for such a small sample. The Daily Yonder's county-by-county analysis gave Huckabee 43.2 percent of the vote in rural counties, with McCain close behind at 41.9 percent. Huckabee "won more than 50 percent of the vote in the areas outside the cities," Bill Bishop and Tim Murphy report. McCain "pulled only about a third of the rural and exurban vote."

One of the biggest differences in the Republican exit poll was among the voters (four in seven) who identified themselves as born-again or evangelical Christians and those who did not. Huckabee carried evangelicals 56-27, while McCain won the rest 54-31. The split was similar among Protestants and Catholics; Louisiana Protestants are heavily evangelical.

Among Democrats, the exit poll found Hillary Clinton doing best in rural areas, which accounted for 26 percent of the Democratic vote. There, Obama led her 48-42, well within the poll's error margin. He won cities 70-27 and suburbs 53-38. the statewide split was 57-36, giving Obama 33 delegates and Clinton 22. The Yonder found that Obama led in rural counties 52.6 to 39.5, about the same as he did in exurban counties, those closer to cities. In cities, he won 61-33, with his largest margin in New Orleans.