INDIANAPOLIS — With a populist edge and a pitch to cut gasoline taxes, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was beating Sen. Barack Obama decisively among working-class white voters and voters most concerned about the slumping economy in another hard-pressed state in the heartland.

Thus Hoosiers threatened last night to deny Democratic front-runner Obama another chance to strike the kind of decisive blow against his rival that could draw their exhausting contest to a close and quell concerns among Democrats about the general election.

“As the economy declines in these big, heartland states, so too does Obama’s percentage of the vote — especially among working-class voters,” said Michael Wolf, a political science professor at Indiana-Purdue University Fort Wayne, noting a pattern that Clinton is bound to highlight in the remaining weeks.

All the same, Obama’s North Carolina win pushed his delegate total closer to the nominating majority that still seems mathematically out of reach for Clinton. The race goes on to West Virginia’s primary next week and beyond, “even though over half of the remaining delegates will have been eaten up tonight,” Wolf said. Clinton needs to win 65- to 70-percent majorities in the remaining states in order to knot the delegate count — a highly unlikely feat, he said.

Meanwhile, Hoosiers spoke yesterday of their votes in ways that underlined the rift in the party. Among the two-thirds of those who listed the economy as their top concern, a clear majority favored Clinton over Obama: 54-to-45 percent, according to surveys of voters leaving the polls.

Clinton did even better with white voters who did not have a college degree — 65-to-34 percent in the exit polls.

“I think she’s been around longer and she’s experienced on the economy,” said Jason Collins, a 28-year-old Coca-Cola plant worker. “Barack Obama is not really ready for the job.”

Massage therapist Lorie McMahon, 28, voted for Clinton, she said, because “she has a little bit more experience and she’s a little bit more conservative. You can say you’re going to change everything, but how are you going to do it?”

Obama “is an awesome guy,” McMahon said, “but I guess he’s maybe just a little too radical for my taste.”

Voter concerns about Obama persisted, with about half saying in the exit polls that they were swayed by the issue of Obama’s relationship with the controversial former pastor of his church in Chicago.

Obama “scares me,” said Joe Hudson, a 68-year-old dentist, noting with a smile that his wife and two grown children are strong Obama backers. Hudson said the episode concerning the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. raised doubt about the candidate’s trustworthiness.

“Why would you like a man for all those years and all of a sudden you don’t like him anymore?” Hudson demanded. That was a reference to Obama’s break with Wright after the minister’s latest incendiary comments.

Wolf, the Indiana-Purdue professor, speculated that the exit polls underestimated the indirect impact of the Wright episode in blunting Obama’s effort to address the economy. Some voters said it also underlined doubts less about race than about how Obama handles himself.

“With the spiraling gas prices, you had a real, vivid change that showed what’s going on with the economy here — exactly at the time when Clinton pitched her gas tax cut,” said Wolf. But Obama’s rebuttal was largely lost on many voters because of the Wright fracas, he said.

Vicki Jarrett, a 55-year-old teacher, said Clinton “is being down to earth on the issues and she’s being professional.” She suggested that Obama relies too much on campaign “theatrics.”

Not that Obama was without appeal and Clinton without liabilities.

April Wainwright, 47, said she has soured on Clinton over style and substance. With the economy such a key issue, she agreed with Obama that Clinton’s embrace of a federal gasoline tax holiday was election-year gimmickry that would hurt the national road-building fund more than it would help the average worker.

“I’m a truck driver and I know about raggedy roads,” Wainwright said, adding that she was put off by a TV clip that showed Clinton having difficulty working a gasoline pump.

Wainwright added that Clinton “has kind of had her time. Obama’s new, he’s coming up, I’m going to give him a chance.”

That was also a popular point among young professionals, who tended strongly toward Obama. Mike Boyle, a 24-year old business promotions manager who works at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, embodied the excitement about Obama that moved droves of young voters to help create a record turnout in this state — as they have time and again since the first votes early this year in Iowa’s precinct caucuses.

Boyle did not cite specific issues as factors in his decision. Rather, he said, “Obama is more geared toward my age group than any of the other candidates. I think this is great,” Boyle said, enthusing about the banner-waving crowds of Obama supporters who roamed downtown Indianapolis during a pre-primary concert for Obama. “I’ve never seen my age group directly involved like this.”

One bright spot for whichever candidate eventually wins the nomination was the palpable dissatisfaction with the Bush administration, with even loyal Republicans crossing over to cast ballots in the Democratic primary.

A.J. Ploughe, a 39-year-old caterer and a lifelong Republican, voted in the Democratic primary because President Bush has “completely screwed up” and chose Clinton “because I honestly think she is the best of the three candidates.”

“I’ve heard a lot of Obama’s talk about change but I haven’t yet heard what changes he would make,” Ploughe said.

If yesterday’s results from Indiana foreshadow further weeks of fighting inside the Democratic house, some voters dismissed the fears of professional Democrats that the prolonged nominating fight might damage the chances of the eventual winner to defeat McCain in the general election.

“I’d love to see him president and her VP,” truck driver Wainwright said of Obama and Clinton. “Or vice versa. I just want to get somebody who’ll change the way things are.”

jmulligan@belo-dc.com