By Greg Giroux, CQ Staff

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama soundly defeated New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in Saturday’s Democratic caucuses in Nebraska, one of four states that held Democratic contests four days after Obama and Clinton ended the “Super Tuesday” voting on Feb. 5 in a virtual dead heat.

With about three-fourths of the vote counted as of 8:30 eastern time, Obama had 69 percent and Clinton had 31 percent.

Obama was leading in all three of Nebraska’s U.S. House districts. Earlier Saturday, Democratic officials announced that Obama had won 77 percent in the state’s 2nd District, which includes Omaha, the state’s most-populous city, and some suburbs. Obama was leading narrowly in Nebraska’s 3rd District, which takes in the western two-thirds of the state and is Nebraska’s most Republican-leaning district.

Turnout was robust, as it has been in Democratic contests since the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3. The Omaha World Herald’s blog noted that a number of caucus locations were overwhelmed with long lines, and that the lines of Obama voters were longer than those of Clinton backers.

But Nebraska Democratic officials probably will accept complaints of poor planning and long lines as small prices to pay for the intense interest and strong participation in the Democratic contest, which they could not have anticipated to be this close when they began preparations last year to hold a caucus. Nebraska Democrats typically began the delegate selection process in a May presidential primary (which the Republicans are doing this year, on May 13). The last truly consequential Democratic nomination contest in Nebraska was in 1968, four decades ago, when Robert F. Kennedy defeated Eugene McCarthy in a primary election in May.

Obama campaigned in Omaha on Thursday, and his high-profile backers included Sen. Ben Nelson and Omaha mayor Mike Fahey. Clinton’s campaign aired a television ad that featured a testimonial from Bob Kerrey, the former Nebraska governor and senator who ran against Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, for the 1992 Democratic presidential nomination.

The Nebraska Democratic caucuses modeled their event after the Jan. 3 Democratic caucuses in Iowa, which abuts Nebraska. Caucus participants divided up into candidate “preference groups” to apportion delegates to county conventions that will be held in early June. The delegates who will attend the Democratic national convention in late August will be determined by the state Democratic convention in late June.

With his win in Nebraska, Obama has continued his dominance of caucuses, which feature lower overall turnout than more organized primary elections and which tend to draw the most committed of party activists. Obama won the kickoff Iowa caucuses and has won almost every caucus since, except the Nevada caucuses on Jan. 15. Votes are still being counted in New Mexico, where caucuses on Feb. 5 yielded a very close race between Clinton and Obama.