SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Former senator George McGovern, who backed Hillary Rodham Clinton, is urging her to drop out of the Democratic presidential race.
Mr. McGovern said Wednesday he has decided to endorse Barack Obama.
After watching the returns from the North Carolina and Indiana primaries Tuesday night, Mr. McGovern says it's virtually impossible for Ms. Clinton to win the nomination.
Mr. McGovern says he is calling former president Clinton to tell him of the decision and adds that he remains close friends with the Clintons.
Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama speaks to supporters at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, N.C., on Tuesday. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
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Ms. Clinton lent her presidential campaign $6.4 million over the past month, her campaign said Wednesday, underscoring the financial advantage held by her rival, Mr. Obama.
The money more than doubled Sen. Clinton's personal investment in her bid for the Democratic nomination. She gave her campaign $5 million earlier this year.
A campaign aide said Sen. Clinton gave her campaign another $5 million on April 11, more than a week before the Pennsylvania primary. She then again dipped into her personal wealth for $1 million last week and $425,000 on Monday, one day before the North Carolina and Indiana primaries.
Sen. Clinton's campaign reported raising $10 million online after her Pennsylvania victory on April 22. Evidently, the money was not enough and her fundraising was unable to keep up with her expenses heading into Tuesday's contests.
Moreover, Sen. Obama has routinely outspent her in primary after primary and has shown little difficulty tapping his vast network of donors. He spent more than $7 million on advertising head of Tuesday's primaries in North Carolina and Indiana to her nearly $4 million.
According to the latest campaign finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission, Sen. Obama began the month of April with $42 million in the bank for the primary to Sen. Clinton's $9.3 million.
But Sen. Clinton had debts of $10.3 million at the start of the month, much of it money owed to her main polling, phone banking and advertising consultants.
Mr. Obama swept to victory in the North Carolina primary Tuesday night and lengthened his lead in the delegate race. Ms. Clinton narrowly won Indiana as she struggled to stop her rival's march toward the party's presidential nomination.
Ms. Clinton told her supporters in Indianapolis that she won the state and will continue in the race for the Democratic nomination.
In what was perhaps a nod to her uphill struggle to overcome Mr. Obama's lead in delegates, Ms. Clinton pledged anew that she'll swing behind the Democratic nominee “no matter what happens.”
“Tonight we stand less than 200 delegates away from winning the Democratic nomination for president of the United States,” Mr. Obama told a raucous rally in Raleigh, N.C. – and left no doubt he intended to claim the prize.
He said it appeared Ms. Clinton had won Indiana's primary, although thousands of votes had yet to be counted in key counties.
Returns from 93 per cent of North Carolina precincts showed Mr. Obama was winning 57 per cent of the vote to 43 per cent for Ms. Clinton, a triumph that mirrored his earlier wins in Southern states with large black populations.
Mr. Obama won at least 40 delegates and Ms. Clinton at least 31 in North Carolina, with 116 still to be awarded in the two states.
That made Indiana a virtual must-win Midwestern state for the former first lady, hoping to counter Mr. Obama's persistent delegate advantage with a strong run through the late primaries.
There, returns from 87 per cent of the precincts showed Ms. Clinton with 52 per cent of the vote to 48 per cent for Mr. Obama.
The economy was the top issue by far in both states, according to interviews with voters as they left their polling places.
Voters in both states fell along racial patterns long since established in a marathon race between the nation's strongest-ever black presidential candidate and its most formidable female challenger for the White House.
Mr. Obama was gaining more than 90 per cent of the black vote in Indiana, while Ms. Clinton was winning an estimated 61 per cent of the white vote there.
In North Carolina, Ms.Clinton won 60 per cent of the white vote, while Mr. Obama claimed support from roughly 90 per cent of the blacks who cast ballots.
Mr. Obama's delegate haul edged him closer to his prize – 1785.5 to 1,639 for Ms. Clinton in The Associated Press count, out of 2,025 needed to win the nomination.
He has long led Ms. Clinton among delegates won in the primaries and caucuses, and has increasingly narrowed his deficit among superdelegates who will attend the convention by virtue of their stats as party leaders. The AP tally showed Ms. Clinton with 269.5 superdelegates, and Mr. Obama with 255.
The impact of a long-running controversy over Mr. Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, was difficult to measure.
In North Carolina, six in 10 voters who said Mr. Wright's incendiary comments affected their votes sided with Ms. Clinton. A somewhat larger percentage of voters who said the pastor's remarks did not matter supported Mr. Obama.
The effect of Ms. Clinton's call for a summertime suspension of the federal gasoline tax – which dominated the final days of the two primaries – was impossible to judge.
The questionnaire used to learn about voter motivation did not include any questions about the gasoline tax.
In Indiana, about one in five voters said they were independents, an additional one in 10 said Republican.
Only Democrats and unaffiliated voters were permitted to vote in North Carolina.
Voting in Indiana was carried out under a state law, recently upheld by the Supreme Court, that requires voters to produce a valid photo ID. About a dozen nuns in their 80s and 90s at St. Mary's Convent in South Bend were denied ballots because they lacked the necessary identification.
Mr. Obama began the day with 1,745.5 delegates, to 1,608 for Ms. Clinton, out of 2,025 needed for the nomination.
Both races were dominated in the final days by Ms. Clinton's call for a summertime suspension of the federal gasoline tax, an issue that she created after scoring a victory in the Pennsylvania primary two weeks ago.
Mr. Obama ridiculed the proposal as a stunt that would cost jobs, not the break for consumers she claimed. The two rivals dug in, devoting personal campaign time and television commercials to the issue.
Indiana had 72 delegates at stake, and Ms. Clinton projected confidence about the results by arranging a primary-night appearance in Indianapolis.
North Carolina had 115 delegates at stake, and Mr. Obama countered with a rally in Raleigh.
Mr. Obama leads Ms. Clinton in delegates won in primaries and caucuses. Despite his defeat two weeks ago, he has steadily whittled away at her advantage in superdelegates in the past two weeks and trails 269.5 to 255.
Ms. Clinton saved her candidacy with her win in Pennsylvania, and she campaigned aggressively in Indiana in hopes of denying Mr. Obama a victory next door to his home state of Illinois. Indiana is home to large numbers of blue-collar workers who have been attracted to the former first lady, and she sought to use her call for a federal gas tax holiday to draw them and other economically pinched voters closer.
Inevitably, the issue quickly took on larger dimensions.
Mr. Obama said it symbolized a candidacy consisting of “phony ideas, calculated to win elections instead of actually solving problems.”
Ms. Clinton retorted, “Instead of attacking the problem, he's attacking my solutions,” and ran an ad in the campaign's final hours that said she “gets it.”
To a large extent, the gasoline tax eclipsed the controversy surrounding Mr. Obama's former pastor. After saying several weeks earlier he could not disown the Rev. Jeremiah Wright for his fiery sermons, Mr. Obama did precisely that when the minister embarked on a media tour.
At a news conference in North Carolina last week, Mr. Obama equated Mr. Wright's comments with “giving comfort to those who prey on hate.”
The balance of the primary schedule includes West Virginia, with 28 delegates on May 13; Oregon with 52 and Kentucky with 51 a week later; Puerto Rico with 55 delegates on June 1, and Montana with 16 and South Dakota with 15 on June 3.
Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the Republican nomination already in hand, campaigned in North Carolina and assailed Mr. Obama for his vote against confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts.
“Senator Obama in particular likes to talk up his background as a lecturer on law, and also as someone who can work across the aisle to get things done,” Mr. McCain said. “But ... he went right along with the partisan crowd, and was among the 22 senators to vote against this highly qualified nominee.”
Ms. Clinton also voted against Chief Justice Roberts, but Mr. McCain, as is often the case, focused his remarks on Mr. Obama.
Mr. Obama's campaign responded that the Republican would pick judges who represent a threat to abortion rights and to Mr. McCain's own legislation to limit the role of money in political campaigns.
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