Clinton wins the rural vote in Texas and Ohio

Hillary Clinton racked up big margins among rural voters in today's presidential primaries in Ohio and Texas, while Barack Obama did likewise in the very rural state of Vermont, said exit polls conducted by the National Election Pool for major news organizations. (Photo: Clinton and daughter Chelsea at victory party by Carolyn Cole, Los Angeles Times)

In the precincts that the pollsters defined as rural, Clinton won 67 percent of the vote in Ohio and 60 percent in Texas. She won Ohio, "restoring her viability as the potential Democratic presidential nominee," Wolf Blitzer said on CNN at 10:55 p.m., when the Texas result was still very much in doubt.

Obama won 60 percent of the rural vote and the overall vote in Vermont, which accounted for three-fourths of the exit poll sample there. Vermont is the nation's most rural state by population. In Rhode Island, one of the least rural (9 percent by the census, 12 percent of the poll sample), Clinton got 60 percent of the overall vote but the rural race was close: Obama 51, Clinton 49. That was well within the margin of error for that small sample, plus or minus about 7 percentage points.

Rural precincts accounted for only 10 percent of the exit-poll sample in Ohio, though the state's population was 23 percent rural in the 2000 census. In Texas, the rural vote was 20 percent of the sample; the last census had the state 17.5 percent rural. Clinton carried West Texas, the Rio Grande Valley and East Texas, while Obama won the Dallas and Houston areas and the south-central part of the state.

In Ohio's suburbs, which were 64 percent of that state's sample, Clinton ran ahead of Barack Obama, 54 to 46 percent. In Ohio's urban areas, Obama got 60 percent of the vote. In the Texas suburbs, 30 percent of that state's sample, Obama led 50-49, a statistical tie. He led 52-47 in urban precincts, which made up half the poll's sample of 2,009 voters.

For the Vermont exit-poll results, click here. For the Ohio results, click here. For those in Texas, click here. Just over a third of Texas' delegates will be chosen as a result of precinct caucuses, which were open only to Democratic primary voters. Obama appears to have a 10 percent margin among delegates tied to caucuses, reports Mike Ward of the Austin American-Statesman.

So how rural is Pennsylvania? About 21 percent, the same as the nation.