115 delegates were tied to the results of the primary, with the remainder being unelected superdelegates not pledged to any candidate.

[9] The North Carolina state board of elections reported that misleading robocalls were made to African-American voters in the days leading up to the primary in late April 2008,[10] which essentially told registered voters that they were not registered.

Voters and watchdog groups complained that it was a turnout-suppression effort, and the state Attorney General Roy Cooper ordered them to stop making the calls.

Obama had been under fire for controversial remarks made by Jeremiah Wright, and his lead in North Carolina polls had been reduced to single digits, so Clinton's double-digit loss in that state was a major disappointment.

Further hurting Clinton's campaign was the time-zone differences, as the defeat was reported in prime time, and the news of the narrow victory in Indiana had come too late.