By Greg Giroux, CQ Staff

An expected victory for New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in Tuesday’s primary in West Virginia might have the anticlimactic feel of a badly defeated football team scoring a meaningless late game touchdown that the winning team didn’t try very hard to contest.

But if there’s any state that can give Clinton’s underdog campaign a psychological boost, it is West Virginia, which is as demographically tailor-made to her campaign’s strengths as any state that has voted so far. That’s reflected in two recent state polls that have her ahead of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama by 43 points and 29 points.

West Virginia is overwhelmingly non-Hispanic white (95 percent) and residents have lower incomes and formal levels of education than the rest of the nation. Clinton has been doing well among these demographic groups, while Obama has been polling more strongly among African-Americans and upper-income whites. Unlike neighboring Pennsylvania to the north and Ohio to the west, West Virginia doesn’t have the large urban centers that would allow Obama to at least hold down Clinton’s huge advantage in rural areas. (Click here for political and demographic data about West Virginia).

“This is Clinton country by demographics,” said Robert Rupp, a political scientist at West Virginia Wesleyan College in Buckhannon.

West Virginia is also one of those “swing” states Clinton is telling Democratic voters that the party needs to win this November — and where she says she is better equipped than Obama to defeat Arizona Sen. John McCain . Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, made five campaign stops Wednesday in the state he carried easily in 1992 and 1996. In the last 10 elections, the state voted Republican four times and Democratic six times.

“I would describe West Virginia as Pennsylvania without Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, and . . . a 2-1 Democratic registration. . . . It’s one of the most Democratic states, registration-wise, in the nation,” Rupp said.

Obama’s campaign, though it organized and aired television commercials in West Virginia before Clinton’s operation, appears to be focusing more intently on Oregon, which is holding a primary election May 20 — and which is the most pro-Obama state that will vote between now and June 3, when Democratic voting concludes with primaries in Montana and South Dakota.

There are 28 pledged delegates at stake in West Virginia, which also has 11 unpledged superdelegates who are free to back the candidate of their choice. Eighteen of the pledged delegates will be given to Clinton and Obama based on their performances in each of the state’s three congressional districts, which have six delegates apiece. There are also seven “at-large” delegates and three pledged party leaders and elected officials — known as PLEOs in the Democratic Party’s shorthand — that will be apportioned to the candidates on the basis of statewide primary returns.

A six-delegate district will produce a 3-3 tie if the winner takes less than 58.3 percent of the vote (because multiplying that percentage by six yields a total of 3.5, which would be rounded up to four). A 4-2 delegate split would result if the winner’s vote percentage is between 58.3 percent and 75 percent of the vote.

CQ Politics projects that Clinton will win four of six delegates in each of the three congressional districts, though her vote percentages could vary widely. She also is assured of winning two of the three pledged PLEOs and at least four — perhaps five — of the seven pledged at-large delegates (it takes 64.3 percent to win five).

That comes out to a 18-10 or 19-9 advantage for Clinton — a large percentage of the delegates that are at stake, but a net gain that is much smaller than the net gain in pledged delegates that Obama registered in the North Carolina primary this past week.

Here’s a look at how Tuesday’s Democratic presidential primary in West Virginia could play out in each of the state’s three congressional districts:

• 1st District (North — Parkersburg, Wheeling, Morgantown). This district, which is represented by 13-term Democratic Rep. Alan B. Mollohan , includes all of West Virginia’s border with Pennsylvania and most of its border with Ohio. The counties in southwestern Pennsylvania and southeastern Ohio that are near Wheeling and Parkersburg voted heavily for Clinton, so West Virginia’s 1st should be strong Clinton turf. There is an academic community in and around West Virginia University in Morgantown, though Obama’s perceived strength there would not offset Clinton’s advantage elsewhere in the district. CQ Politics Prediction: Clinton 4, Obama 2.