Joe Gerth

The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Hillary Clinton defeated Bernie Sanders in the Kentucky presidential primary Tuesday night, the state Democratic party said. In Oregon, Sanders was declared the victor with about 60% of the vote counted.

With 99.89% of the precincts reporting in Kentucky, Clinton had 46.75% to Sanders' 46.33%, a difference of about 1,800 votes, according to the Associated Press. The candidates traded the lead throughout the vote count, which at one point narrowed to just 126 ballots.

News organizations waited hours for the Bluegrass State race to be officially called, but Clinton took to Twitter to declare victory tweeting, "We just won Kentucky! Thanks to everyone who turned out. We're always stronger united."

Clinton was trying to recapture not only her momentum across the nation but also the Clinton family magic that made Bill Clinton the last Democrat to win Kentucky in a presidential race and gave Hillary Clinton a huge victory over Barack Obama in 2008.

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Meanwhile, Sanders was trying to continue chipping away at Clinton’s 767 delegate lead in the Democratic presidential race. After Tuesday, only six Democratic primary elections remain. Oregon voters also voted Tuesday. With more than half of the vote counted, AP called the contest for Sanders.

Sanders told cheering supporters in Carson, Calif., Tuesday night, "We are in until the last ballot is cast."

Kentucky Republicans chose Donald Trump as their nominee in a March 5 caucus. Oregon voters also went with Trump, the last candidate actively in the race.

In Kentucky 55 Democratic delegates were up for grabs. Each Clinton and Sanders will get 27. In addition, the state’s Democrats have five superdelegates, two of which have already pledged their support to Clinton. Two others have not said who they would vote for, and a fifth superdelegate has not been named.

The race between Clinton, a former first lady, secretary of State and senator, and Sanders, an Independent U.S. senator from Vermont, was the first truly contested Democratic primary in Kentucky since the Bluegrass State took part in the 1988 Super Tuesday. Obama barely visited the state in 2008 and had essentially locked up the nomination before Kentucky's primary.

Sanders dominated in Eastern and Western Kentucky, particularly around the coal fields, while Clinton won the state's urban areas and a swath of counties through the central part of the state. In all, Clinton won 38 of Kentucky's 120 counties, piling up a huge 18,932 vote advantage in Jefferson. Clinton has performed best in places with sizable African-American populations throughout the country.

Over the last two weeks, Clinton and her husband made numerous stops across the state, drawing small-to-medium size crowds as they crisscrossed the state.

Over the weekend, Hillary Clinton was in Louisville, Bowling Green, Fort Mitchell, Hopkinsville, Lexington and elsewhere.

Meanwhile, Sanders held larger events in Bowling Green and Paducah and a small event in Elizabethtown. His largest event, however, was two weeks ago when he drew some 7,000 people to Waterfront Park in Louisville, the same night he won the Indiana primary across the river.

It was somewhat reminiscent of the huge crowd that Obama drew to the Kentucky International Convention Center in the days leading up to the 2008 primary. That didn’t help him as Clinton, powered by a stronger organization and multiple campaign stops across the state, carried the state 66% to 30%.

The Clinton-Sanders tilt was difficult to handicap because of the lack of independent polling in the race. The last poll was conducted in early March by Public Policy Polling and showed Clinton with a 5 percentage point advantage.

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That was before Clinton, during a town hall meeting in Columbus, Ohio, said that she was “going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business,” while trying to explain her plan to sink some $30 billion into Appalachia to rebuild the economy.

Her opponents seized on those words, which appear to have harmed her in central Appalachia. Sanders beat her 51% to 36% in West Virginia. She sent her husband into the heart of Kentucky’s coal country last week to try to convince voters that she is the only candidate qualified to save communities dependent on coal as the industry declines.

Entering Tuesday's contests, Clinton led Sanders by nearly 300 pledged delegates. When superdelegates — elected officials and party leaders free to support either candidate — are factored in, her lead is much larger and brings her to within 150 delegates away of the 2,383 needed to clinch the Democratic nomination, according to the Associated Press. In the final round of state primaries next month, Clinton holds a 10-point lead in California, according to the RealClearPolitics average of polls, where 475 pledged delegates will be at stake.

Yet Sanders has repeatedly said he’ll fight all the way to the Philadelphia convention in July. And he’s showing he’ll battle for every last delegate, jetting on Monday to Puerto Rico, which holds a caucus June 5.

Contributing: Heidi M Przybyla, USA TODAY. Follow Joe Gerth on Twitter: @Joe_Gerth