Bush, Clinton Sweep Races in Indiana, N. Carolina and D.C. : Primaries: The President’s share of vote was no lower than 70%. Democratic front-runner scored better than 60% in all three contests.

WASHINGTON —  President Bush and his prospective Democratic challenger, Bill Clinton, swept presidential primaries Tuesday in Indiana, North Carolina and the District of Columbia.

Bush, who had nailed down the delegates needed to assure his renomination before Tuesday’s balloting, again defeated his sole challenger, conservative columnist Patrick J. Buchanan. The President has 1,211 delegates to Buchanan’s 80; 1,105 are required for nomination. His share of the vote in all three contests was no lower than 70%.

Clinton, who began the day with about three-fourths of the 2,145 delegates he needs for a first-ballot majority, overwhelmed his sole remaining active challenger, former California Gov. Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr., scoring more than 60% in all three primaries. He also outdistanced former Massachusetts Sen. Paul E. Tsongas, who suspended his campaign last March but whose name remains on the ballot.

The Arkansas governor began the day with 1,591 delegates and ended it with 1,743. Brown gained 20 delegates for a total of 342; Tsongas remained at 536.

As he has in previous primaries, Clinton turned his attention to the general election, deriding the President’s response to the Los Angeles riots--which were sparked by the not guilty verdicts in the trial of four white police officers accused of beating black motorist Rodney G. King. On Monday, the Administration blamed the unrest on “the liberal programs of the 1960s and ‘70s.” (On Tuesday, the White House sought to soften that remark, saying the programs “did not help.”)

In a speech before about 100 supporters in the atrium of an office building in Charlotte, N.C., Clinton declared that the Bush Administration’s attempt to shift blame has shown “what this race cannot be about.”

“This White House ought to be looking for somebody to help, not somebody to blame,” he said.

“We are Southerners, you and I. We have learned the hard way that when we are divided by race we never get anywhere.”

Brown took the three losses Tuesday in stride. “I’d like to do better, but this is about a cause, about we the people,” he said at Washington’s National Airport. “It’s not about me.”

The former California governor vowed to stay in the race to the convention, to give people a choice.

Brown warned that Los Angeles will be a harbinger of a long, violent period unless government aids the cities and the children. “Unless we wake up to these needs, what happened in Los Angeles will happen again and again in America,” he said.

Even Texas billionaire Ross Perot, who is expected to run for the White House as an independent, has criticized Bush’s handling of the verdicts and riots. He said that if he were President, he would have ordered that federal civil rights charges be filed immediately against the police officers, “because that sends people the signal that justice still lives.”

Exit polls in Indiana and North Carolina showed that roughly 25% of the voters in both parties would support Perot’s candidacy.

In North Carolina, most of the action was provided by Buchanan, who stumped the state in search of his first primary victory. He hoped to find it in the home state of conservative Sen. Jesse Helms, but the conservative Republican lawmaker backed Bush.

If Tuesday’s balloting contained any surprises, it was the victory of a controversial anti-abortion candidate in Indiana’s 9th congressional district. Republican Michael E. Bailey, a virtual unknown, gained national attention by running graphic television ads with photos of supposedly aborted fetuses. Federal law required the stations to run the ads; one did so with a disclaimer that the commercials were unsuitable for children’s viewing.

The tactic paid off--Bailey defeated Charles Loos, another foe of abortion. With 75% of the vote in, he had 58% to Loos’ 42%. Bailey is expected to continue the ads in his campaign against longtime Democratic Rep. Lee H. Hamilton, who has voted against federal funding for abortions.

In North Carolina, local contests drew much of the attention. Among the Republicans, former Democrat Lauch Faircloth won the right to run against incumbent Democratic Sen. Terry Sanford, who is considered vulnerable, in part, because of his early and forceful criticism of Bush’s handling of the Persian Gulf crisis.

Among Democrats, former Gov. Jim Hunt, perhaps best known nationally for his expensive, bitter and futile effort to take Helms’ Senate seat in 1984, won his party’s nomination to return to the governor’s mansion. He will face Republican Lt. Gov. Jim Gardner.

On the congressional front, most of the attention focused on the state’s 1st and 12th districts, which were redrawn as majority-black to conform to the federal Voting Rights Act.

The 1st District’s Democratic incumbent, Rep. Walter Jones Sr., is retiring, and four blacks were among the seven Democrats vying to succeed him. But so was his son, state Rep. Walter B. Jones Jr., who overwhelmed the opposition.

Ted Tyler, another white candidate, was unopposed in his bid for the GOP nomination.

In the 12th District, four Democrats were vying for the nomination--all of them black. Melvin Watt, a Charlotte attorney, won.

Barbara Washington, one of three black candidates for the GOP nomination, will oppose him.

Tuesday’s Results

North Carolina

DEMOCRATS

90% of precincts reporting

Dele- Vote % gates Bill Clinton 386,358 64 72 Jerry Brown 63,484 11 0 Paul Tsongas 50,754 8 0 Uncommitted 89,376 15 12 REPUBLICANS 91% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates George Bush 185,050 71 45 Patrick Buchanan 51,028 20 12 Uncommitted 24,743 9 0 Indiana DEMOCRATS 81% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates Bill Clinton 243,121 64 57 Jerry Brown 80,416 21 21 Paul Tsongas 46,221 12 0 REPUBLICANS 81% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates George Bush 302,269 80 30 Patrick Buchanan 74,701 20 0 District of Columbia DEMOCRATS 100% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates Bill Clinton 44,602 74 17 Jerry Brown 4,334 7 0 Paul Tsongas 6,314 10 0 Uncommitted 5,161 9 0 REPUBLICANS 100% of precincts reporting Dele- Vote % gates George Bush 4,157 81 14 Patrick Buchanan 950 19 0