Barack Obama has been handed two more embarrassing near-defeats in the Democratic primaries held in Arkansas and Kentucky

In the Arkansas primary, challenger John Wolfe won nearly 42% of the vote, and in Kentucky 42% of Democrats selected “uncommitted” over Obama. So far, four states — Arkansas, Kentucky, West Virginia and Oklahoma — have given over 40% of their primary vote to someone other than Barack Obama. All of these races were closed primaries, meaning that only Democrats were eligible to vote in them.