(CNN) - Sen. Hillary Clinton has won the February 5 Democratic presidential caucuses in New Mexico, the state party chairman announced Thursday after a count delayed by a large number of provisional ballots.
Clinton, the senator from New York and former first lady, edged out Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois by about 2,000 votes out of the nearly 150,000 cast, New Mexico Democratic Chairman Brian Colon announced nine days after the contest.
The final tally was given as 73,105, or about 49 percent, for Clinton and 71,396, or 48 percent, for Obama.
"With these two Democratic candidates, we had in New Mexico the largest voter turnout in decades," Colon said.
New Mexico is the last of two dozen states that held primaries or caucuses on "Super Tuesday" to complete its count. Colon said the results were delayed as election officials sorted through 17,000 provisional ballots cast during the contest to determine which ones were valid.
Provisional ballots were cast by people whose names did not appear on lists of eligible voters. More than 200 volunteers slogged through the stack of ballots, about half of which were eventually certified, Colon said.
(updated 6 p.m. ET with additional information)
(CNN) – They're counting votes in New Mexico - still.
Six days after Super Tuesday, when millions of voters cast ballots in 24 states and America Samoa, the winner remains in doubt in the Democratic presidential caucus in New Mexico.
Volunteers with the Democratic Party of New Mexico have been working 16 hours a day – in shifts – to try to figure out whether Democrats there preferred Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York or Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, the state party said Sunday.
"We know it is urgent to get these results completed," Chairman Brian S. Colon of the Democratic Party of New Mexico said in a statement Sunday.
The national media spotlight has moved on to primaries and caucuses in other states, including contests Tuesday in Maryland, Virginia and Washington D.C. Yet 227 volunteers with the Democratic Party of New Mexico are still slogging through provisional ballots - votes cast by people whose names did not appear on lists of eligible voters.
Election rules let people cast provisional ballots that will be counted as long as officials verify that the person is eligible to vote.
As it stands now in New Mexico, Clinton leads Obama by 1,066 votes out of about 154,000 cast, according to the state Democratic Party. That total does not include 17,276 provisional ballots.
(CNN) – Hillary Clinton may have the edge among white voters nationally, but in New Mexico Barack Obama is leading her among that demographic, 55 percent to 37 percent. This is a clear departure from the national trend that shows Clinton with the edge among white voters. (She's beating Obama nationwide among white Democrats by 8 points.)
But New Mexico remains highly competitive overall because the Latino vote there is breaking strongly for Clinton, 61 percent to 30 percent.
–CNN Political Analyst Bill Schneider
From CNN Politics
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