NC Primary Watch: Obama's lead growing

This is the latest installment in a series on the upcoming North Carolina primaries.

Maybe Sen. Barack Obama will run away with the North Carolina primary after all.

On Wednesday, I tried to make sense of a recent Public Policy Polling survey (pdf) which showed Obama with a whopping 21 point advantage over Sen. Hillary Clinton among N.C. Democrats.

Given that previous polls had put Obama's lead in the 5-8% range, I concluded it was too early to tell if his lead was really that big.

But a new InsiderAdvantage poll suggests Obama may indeed be headed for a rout in N.C. The latest survey shows Obama leading Clinton 49% to 34% in North Carolina -- a commanding 15 point advantage.

Political Wire reports on the key findings:

[According to the pollsters] "A modest but significant portion of whites are drifting from Clinton back into the 'undecided' column."

Said pollster Matt Towery: "If [Clinton] loses badly here, regardless of any modest gains in the national delegate count, her candidacy may be done unless her primary victories in Florida and Michigan somehow end up being seated at the national nominating convention."