Barack Obama's victory Tuesday in Oklahoma's Democratic primary was far less emphatic than typical for an incumbent president, and his poor showing in more than a dozen of the state's counties threatened to cost him a unanimous re-nomination.
With all but six of the state's 1,961 precincts reporting, Obama had 57 percent of the vote. An anti-abortion activist, Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry, had 18 percent of the vote and under party rules could lay claim to at least one delegate.
"This shows real dissatisfaction," said Ben Odom, a political strategist and a former vice-chairman of the state Democratic Party. "You had a pro-life activist and three people who didn't mount a campaign get 44 percent of the vote. ... An incumbent president ought to be polling at least 80 percent, particularly against this kind of opposition."