As polls closed in two Democratic primaries Tuesday, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois won North Carolina while his rival Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York took an early lead in Indiana.

All major U.S. TV news networks projected Obama to win North Carolina handily only moments after the 2330 GMT close of voting in that state.

The networks are basing the projections almost entirely on surveys done of voters as they exited polling places.

With 14 percent of the precincts reporting, Obama is leading Clinton 64-36 percent in North Carolina.

In Indiana, Clinton held a 54-46 percent lead over Obama with 52 percent of precincts reporting in Indiana.

Exit polls in Indiana show that about half the voters say the controversy over Obama's former pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright was an important factor in their vote.

But preliminary data from those polls show that the focus on Wright is not giving Clinton a big advantage.

The exit polls also show that Clinton is continuing to do strongly with working-class white voters, a pivotal group that Obama has been struggling to win over.

Two-thirds of working-class whites are backing Clinton while African Americans are overwhelmingly supporting Obama. The vote-counting comes after a day of heavy voting in both states.

Both states also held GOP primaries, but John McCain already has clinched the Republican presidential nomination.

Altogether, 187 delegates are at stake in the two states, nearly half the pledged delegates left with six primaries to go before voting ends in a month.

Both Clinton and Obama predicted they'd still be campaigning in June.

According to estimates from CNN, Obama began the day with 1,765 delegates, to 1,615 for Clinton, out of 2,024 needed for the nomination.