INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana (CNN) -- Sen. Hillary Clinton, who made a strong pitch to blue-collar workers, was pulling a majority of the votes in rural and suburban Indiana during Tuesday's Democratic primary.
With 87 percent of the vote recorded in Indiana, Clinton had 52 percent of the vote to Sen. Barack Obama's 48 percent.
In CNN exit polling, Clinton of New York was taking 53 percent of the vote in suburban areas, compared to 47 percent for Obama of Illinois, and 68 percent of the rural vote compared to Obama's 32 percent.
In all, 1,738 voters were polled. See the exit poll results
Clinton had pitched herself as the candidate best-suited to turn around a flailing economy and consciously courted working-class voters in the state -- even driving a pickup to a gas pump to help promote her proposed temporary rollback of federal tax on gasoline.
"I believe that Americans need a champion in their corners," she said at a rally in Indianapolis. "For too long we've had a president who has stood up and spoken out for the wealthy and the well-connected, but I don't think that's what Americans need.
"Standing up for working people is about the American dream and about the Democratic Party; standing up for the middle class is who we are and what we can be if we stick together."
Eighty-nine percent of Indiana voters said they have been affected by what they called a recession. Clinton had a slight edge when voters were asked who is most likely to improve the economy -- taking 49 percent to Obama's 47 percent.
Clinton was hoping for a big result in Indiana, where she was expected to win, and an upset victory in North Carolina -- which Obama won.
While the overall delegate count remains close, Clinton was hoping a two-state sweep would change her image among Democratic superdelegates who ultimately will decide the race. But Clinton would be unlikely to pass Obama in the number of pledged delegates even if she wins every remaining primary.
By winning by a bigger margin in the bigger state of North Carolina, Obama was expected to gain delegates on Clinton after Tuesday's contests.
Even before polls were closed Tuesday, Clinton surrogates were sounding a familiar refrain -- that the primary results in Florida and Michigan should be counted.
The national Democratic Party declared the votes in the states would not be counted after state officials moved the primaries to earlier dates than the party had approved.
Clinton won both primaries -- although none of the candidates campaigned in Florida and Obama's name wasn't on the ballot in Michigan.
Both states have scheduled re-votes in August, even though the party has not said those votes will count and the Democratic National Convention in Denver is set for that month.
"Obviously, having an election in the middle of the convention would delay things, but, look, they need to have a say," said Sen. Evan Bayh, a Clinton supporter and Indiana's senior senator. "We can either count the votes the way they are or find them a way to re-vote."
At Tuesday night's rally, Clinton also mentioned those contests.
"It would be a little strange to have a nominee chosen by 48 states," she said.
But Sen. Claire McCaskill, an Obama supporter from Missouri, said it would be unfair to candidates who planned election strategies knowing results in the two states would not count to decide now to count them.
"All of us want them to be included and all of us want them to be seated," she said, referring to Democratic delegates from the two states. "We just have to be sure we don't change the rules in the middle of the contest."
She said she's confident the situation will not ruin Democrats' chances of winning the two important states against presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain in November.
"I think we do have to reach out; I think we do have to make them feel included," she said. "But at the end of the day, they're just as upset about the war in Iraq, they're just as upset about an economy that has left everybody but the very rich behind."
In Indiana, state elections officials were reporting crowded polling places.
A judge in Porter County ordered several polling places be kept open an extra hour although it was not immediately clear why.
"My office has had discussions with almost all of Indiana's counties today and reports from the counties indicate a high voter turnout that has been steady throughout the day," said Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita, who oversees elections in the state. "Exact numbers will not be tabulated until after the polls close, but it appears to look more like the turnout for a general election."
Rokita said that in the 20 counties with the state's highest increase in voter turnout, "they have not reported any systemic problems and spirits are high."
In the exit polling, a slight majority of Indiana voters said the recent controversy over Obama's former pastor was not important to them.
Fifty-one percent of those polled said comments by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright were not important to them, while 46 percent said they were.
Fiery snippets of Wright's sermons -- in which, among other things, he appears to curse America for historical events like the World War II atomic bombing of Japan -- circulated on the Internet and were aired relentlessly by media outlets for weeks.
Obama initially denounced the comments while refusing to denounce Wright himself. But after Wright made a handful of nationally televised media appearances during which he claimed attacks on him were attacks on the entire black church and said Obama's distancing himself was merely politics, Obama made comments more strongly severing ties with Wright.
With the campaign having dragged on for months, much has been made about divisions in the Democratic Party.
In the exit polls, 35 percent of respondents said they would not be satisfied if Obama wins and a similar number, 32 percent, said they'd be dissatisfied if Clinton wins.
But in her Tuesday night speech, Clinton -- like Obama minutes earlier in North Carolina -- said Democrats will come together in November and that she'll work hard to defeat McCain whether she or Obama is the nominee.
"We know how desperately people want to see a change, and it will not be a change if the Republicans keep the White House," she said. "It will be more of the same -- something that no one, no matter what political party you may be, can afford."
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