Although Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., won the Democratic Pennsylvania primary by about 10 percent, voters in State College turned out in record numbers mostly in support of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.

About 70 percent of students who voted in the HUB-Robeson Center voted for Obama. In Centre County, he won by about 20 percent.

Voter turnout from State College for the Pennsylvania primary increased 900 percent since 2004 and 1,260 percent since 2000, according to a report using unofficial data from Centre County's Office of Elections and compiled by Matt Popek of Represent Penn State.

About 2,500 people from campus and the surrounding downtown area voted in yesterday's election out of a total of 8,532 registered voters, according to the report.

Colleen Kelley, an associate professor of speech communications at Penn State Erie, said Clinton's win in Pennsylvania means the election will go to the convention, where it will come down to superdelegates.

"There's going to be a whole lot of wrangling over the superdelegates because no matter what Barack Obama does, he can't win enough delegates to take to the convention ... nor can [Hillary]."

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., earned 73 percent of the Republican primary votes over Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, who won 16 percent and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee who won 11 percent.

Even with the increased number of voters, some hoped for more.

"I'm a little disappointed that the turnout wasn't a little higher," said Samantha Miller, spokeswoman for the College Democrats. "I wonder what it takes to get the students to the polls. ... There are 42,000 students at Penn State. Where were they all?" she said, adding that she still sees the increased student primary turnout as "moving in the right direction."

As election results poured in throughout the evening, Penn State Students for Barack Obama gathered at Rotelli, 250 E. Calder Way.

"We were just all as excited as we could be," Jessalyn Schwartz, an officer of Penn State Students for Barack Obama, said about Obama's margin of victory in Centre County. Schwartz said she was particularly proud of her organization's registering the highest percentage increase of new Democrats.

Steve Lucas of Penn State Students for Hillary said that he was not surprised by the statewide results. However, he said he found a troubling exit poll statistic -- 20 percent of Pennsylvania voters said race influenced their choice at the voting booth, according to an Associated Press exit poll.

"We've seen throughout this race that racism and sexism aren't dead," he said. "It's troubling that these kinds of exit polls aren't talked about in the national media."

Lucas said he saw the night as a success for Clinton.

"It's a victory," he said. "It's been a Clinton state for the entire election."

He added that animosity between Clinton and Obama "had not so much created divisions as it had exposed them."

Despite this, he said he looked forward to the Democratic Party uniting once a nominee has been decided.

Miller said that the primary has been good for the Democrats, despite some animosity between the two candidates.

"I think we have a newly energized Democratic Party back in the state," she said.

Collegian Staff Writer Katharine Lackey contributed to this report.