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As soon as Mondale eased off, Hart began to strike back. "This Hart is like a snake you beat into the ground. You think he's dead, then bam! He's back to life again," said Nagle. Ohio and Indiana, where unemployment rates are around 10% and organized labor is strong, seemed like safe territory for Mondale; he wears the union label proudly and had won every previous primary state in which unemployment exceeded 10%. But Hart was finally able to reach into the blue-collar vote with clever ads that showed the Colorado Senator standing in working clothes outside a Youngstown, Ohio, factory, simply listening while the employees carved up Mondale. (First worker: "Union leadership may get our dues, but they don't get our hearts and minds." Second worker: "We lost with Mondale before ... He got up to bat and struck out. Now he wants another turn.") For the first time in the campaign, exit polls showed Hart holding even with Mondale among voters whose families had been hit by unemployment. In addition, unlike the other big industrial states won by Mondale—New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois—Ohio and Indiana allowed "cross-over" voting by Republicans and independents; Hart ran ahead of Mondale among these groups by almost two to one.
Mondale's aides acknowledged their candidate's benign neglect of Ohio and Indiana. But they pointed to Mondale's win in North Carolina, where Hart made the mistake of vaguely threatening to cut off federal price supports for tobacco. In Maryland, where Hart campaigned for barely half an hour, Mondale carried even the suburbs, home of Hart's usually loyal cadre of young, upwardly mobile professionals, the Yumpies. Indeed, when the counting was over in last week's primaries, Mondale had actually won 42 more delegates than Hart, 184 to 142. (Hart overwhelmingly won the caucuses in his home state, Colorado, but the 43 delegates still have not been apportioned.) Mondale aides continue to insist that the delegate tallies heavily favor their man. Campaign Chairman James Johnson predicted that Mondale, who now has 1,528 delegates, would win the necessary majority (1,967) in the last round of primaries, on June 5. To do so, he must win 53% of the 829 delegates yet to be chosen.
The final seven primaries and one caucus will choose 571 of these delegates. In five of the remaining contests, Mondale is the underdog. He has virtually given up on Oregon (43 delegates, May 15), where the Yumpie vote is strong, and faces an uphill struggle in Nebraska (24 delegates, May 15), where popular Governor Bob Kerrey is stumping for Hart. (Last week Kerrey's sometime girlfriend, Actress Debra Winger, campaigned with Hart in Ohio.) Hart also has a slight edge in Idaho (18 delegates, May 24) and South Dakota (15 delegates, June 5).