Blacks make up 29 percent of Maryland's population and could constitute 40 percent or more of the Democratic vote. Obama has gained the support of eight out of 10 black voters in recent primaries, polls show.
Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, a Clinton supporter, dismissed yesterday concerns that a nominee who was not the choice of so many black voters would be bad for the Democratic Party.
"When African-American voters, and in fact, when all voters who comprise the very diverse Democratic Party look at which of the two candidates, the Democratic nominee or the Republican nominee, have their best interests and the interests of strengthening and growing our middle class at the top of their agenda, I have no doubt that we are going to prevail in the fall," O'Malley said on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos.
The top candidates focused their attention yesterday on Virginia, where Clinton, Obama and Huckabee each made appearances.
The Democratic candidates will cross the Potomac today, when Clinton visits a General Motors transmission plant in White Marsh and Obama holds rallies at the Comcast Center in College Park and the 1st Mariner Arena in Baltimore.
Below the surface, the ground troops will continue their tactical struggle. Because Democratic delegates are divided according to a complex formula that takes into account totals in individual congressional districts, both candidates will collect delegates after tomorrow's voting.
But Obama could gain extra delegates if he reaches high percentages in certain congressional districts. For example, if Obama gets about 57 percent of the vote in the 7th District represented by Cummings, he would get four district delegates, while Clinton would get two. Maryland has 99 Democratic delegates, and 70 of them will be assigned based on tomorrow's vote.
Democrats will award 168 delegates tomorrow, with 116 available for Republicans.
Cummings said yesterday that he was working to meet that target in his Baltimore-based district.
"I'm hoping that we will be able to pull that off," he said. "That's my No. 1 aim."
david.nitkin@baltsun.com
Sun reporters John Fritze and Laura Smitherman and Matthew Hay Brown contributed to this article.
