Conventional wisdom said Tuesday’s voting in Pennsylvania would sway Hoosier opinions on who to vote for in Indiana’s May 6 presidential primary.

But Pennsylvania’s results don’t appear to have cleared up anything in Indiana, according to a new statewide poll commissioned by The Tribune, WSBT-TV, WISH-TV in Indianapolis and WANE-TV in Fort Wayne.

Sen. Barack Obama leads Sen. Hillary Clinton by 1 point in a sample of 400 likely Democratic primary voters polled by telephone April 23 and 24.


If the election were today, Obama would get 48 percent of the vote to Clinton’s 47 percent. The poll has a 5 percent margin of error.

A poll conducted for The Tribune earlier in the month showed Clinton at 49 percent and Obama at 46 percent.

The closer numbers might muddy the waters a little in terms of who will win, but the state’s demographics might point more to an Obama victory, said Del Ali, of the Rockville, Md.-based Research 2000, which conducted the study.

“The Democratic electorate in Indiana is not heavily made up among white women over the age of 60 like it was in Pennsylvania,” Ali said, referring to a group of voters heavily in Clinton’s corner.

Clinton won Pennsylvania by about 10 percent.

Here in Indiana, she got the nod from 59 percent of the respondents over age 60, to Obama’s 35 percent.

Clinton also holds 53 percent of women voters, to Obama’s 45 percent.

Similarly, Obama needs to retain, and even increase, the number of younger voters who will cast their ballots for him May 6, Ali said.

Obama earned support from 66 percent of respondents between 18 and 29 years old in the Tribune poll, to Clinton’s 33 percent.

“If that 18-to-29 grows in percent, he wins,” Ali said.

And the two campaigns agree on one thing, at least: It’s going to be a close race, and your vote matters.

“If any Indiana voter had any question about whether his or her vote will be able to shape this nominating process, and finally fundamentally change Washington, I think all the recent polls have put this to rest,” said Kevin Griffis, a spokesman for Obama’s Indiana campaign.

That means both sides will be working hard to capture your vote in the next week and a half.

“We’re concentrating on getting out the vote and winning on May 6,” said Jonathan Swain, spokesman for Hoosiers for Hillary.

All of that means this: Indiana’s primary is a one-point game, in the closing minutes of the fourth quarter, and if you haven’t noticed the mailers, TV commercials, radio ads and yard signs yet, you will soon.