President Obama easily won the Kentucky Democratic Primary last night, but the vote was much closer than it should have been considering he was running unopposed. Obama received 58 percent of the vote state-wide, but that means 42 percent of the people who came out gave their support to "Uncommitted." So many people took time out of their day to register the protest vote that "Uncommitted" beat the President in 67 of Kentucky's 120 counties. 

Obama faced a similar threat in Arkansas, where at least he was running against an actual human. Lawyer and Occupy Wall Street supporter John Wolfe also came in around 42 percent, or right about where he was polling.

Again, to be fair to the president, most of his actual supporters aren't going to bother to come out for a pointless vote and the total number of ballots cast was only around 200,000 across all of Kentucky. (Notice the "turnout" in the photo above.) And Kentucky and Arkansas are unlikely to be in play for the Democrats come November. But it's still an embarrassment for the White House at a time when Obama needs all the good news he can get. With Mitt Romney's poll numbers are growing and the job growth slowing, Obama needs a big win to rally the troops and get back some of that enthusiasm that his supporters seems to have lost since 2008.

Want to add to this story? Let us know in comments or send an email to the author at dbennett at theatlantic dot com. You can share ideas for stories on the Open Wire.
Dashiell Bennett