Democrat Senator Barack Obama beat rival Senator Hillary Clinton by just seven votes in Guam’s nominating contest after record numbers of residents voted in the tiny US territory’s primary, officials said yesterday.
Results after more than 12 hours of manual counting showed Obama took 2,264 votes to 2,257 for Clinton. Turnout was 25 percent higher than the 4,000 party officials expected. In the last Democratic primary in 2004 only 1,500 people took part.
“Clearly, both of them are quite popular and we should celebrate that,” said Josh Tenorio, Obama’s campaign manager on the territory. “It’s a good day for Guam.”
Clinton thanked her supporters and pledged to continue to champion local issues on Guam.
“After seven years of the [US President George W.] Bush administration, Guamanians need someone who will stand up and fight for them,” Clinton said in a statement after the vote.
“As our campaign moves forward after this day, I will continue to champion the issues facing the people of Guam and when I’m president I will ensure that hard-working families of Guam have the resources and the opportunity to succeed,” she said.
With only four votes at the Democratic convention at stake, the contest on Guam, a Pacific island more than 20 hours by plane from Washington, will barely register in the protracted duel for the party’s presidential ticket.
Neither candidate made it to Guam — instead both called into radio stations to campaign — and many Americans have never even heard of the territory, but some islanders were thrilled to finally be in the spotlight.
“A lot of people were confused by the process,” said Robert Lizama, a local mayor. “It’s brought a lot of awareness and participation. I think that’s important. We can’t vote for president, but this is our part of the process.”
Residents cannot vote in the presidential election but Guam, which is less than a fifth of the size of the smallest US state of Rhode Island, sends eight delegates with half a vote each to the Democratic convention in August.
Also on the ballot was the race for chairman and vice chairman of Guam’s Democratic Party.
“I want change. He might change some things, like health insurance. It’s expensive,” said Ricky Castillo, 69, who voted for Obama.
Guam party officials said many people had registered as Democrats at the caucus sites around the island, prompting the tag “Democrats for a day.”
“There are many new Democrats today,” said Herbie Perez, the chairman of the Democratic nominating committee. “I am so surprised. I never thought it would be like this.”
The outcome rested on Dededo, the island’s most populated community and the final village to be counted, and where Clinton had strong support from the predominantly Filipo-American community.
She trailed Obama by 203 votes before counting began in Dededo where officials said several spoiled ballots were rejected.
Clinton had reminded voters about her multiple visits during stopovers on presidential trips with her husband to Asia and Obama emphasized his Pacific Ocean connections through his upbringing in Hawaii and Indonesia.
It was not immediately clear whether the four pledged delegates from Guam’s caucuses would be split evenly between Obama and Clinton.
Guam like, most Democratic Party nominating contests does not use a winner take all formula, but a complicated formula of proportionally doling out the spoils, based on a variety of factors.
But victory for Obama will probably add to his lead over Clinton, while still leaving him short of being able to clinch the nomination to run against Republican Senator John McCain in the November election.
The next major contests for the Democratic nomination are tomorrow in North Carolina and Indiana. The two states have a combined 187 delegates at stake.
While Obama leads in nominating delegates, Clinton has moved into a virtual tie with her rival in national polls after winning in Pennsylvania last month.
Neither Obama nor Clinton is likely to reach the 2,025 delegates needed to clinch the nomination without help from 796 “superdelegates” — party officials and insiders free to back any candidate.
Guam, which goes by the slogan, “Where America’s Day Begins,” will also send five superdelegates to the Democratic convention.
Guam, a US territory since 1898, rarely steps into the limelight of US politics as it lies on the other side of the international dateline.
The island has about 48,000 registered voters.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema