CHARLESTON, W.Va. —
Hillary Clinton coasted to a large but largely symbolic victory in working-class West Virginia on Tuesday, handing Barack Obama one of his worst defeats of the campaign yet scarcely slowing his march toward the Democratic presidential nomination.
"The White House is won in the swing states. And I am winning the swing states," Ms. Clinton told cheering supporters at a victory rally.
She coupled praise with Mr. Obama with a pledge to persevere in a campaign in which she has become the decided underdog. "This race isn't over yet," she said. "Neither of us has the total delegates it takes to win."
Mr. Obama looked ahead to the Oregon primary later in the month and to the general election campaign against Republican John McCain, but the West Virginia defeat underscored his weakness among blue collar voters who will be pivotal in the fall.
Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Hillary Clinton arrives for a primary night rally at the Charleston Civic Center in Charleston, W. Va., on Tuesday. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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"This is our chance to build a new majority of Democrats and independents and Republicans who know that four more years of George Bush just won't do," Mr. Obama said in Missouri, which looms as a battleground state in November.
"This is our moment to turn the page on the divisions and distractions that pass for politics in Washington," added the man seeking to become the first black presidential nominee of a major party.
With votes from 69 per cent of West Virginia's precincts counted, Ms. Clinton was winning 66 per cent of the vote, to 27 per cent for Mr. Obama.
Ms. Clinton's triumph approached the 70 per cent of the vote she gained in Arkansas, her best state to date. It came courtesy of an overwhelmingly white electorate comprised of the kinds of voters who have favoured her throughout the primaries. Nearly a quarter were 60 or older, and a similar number had no education beyond high school. More than half were in families with incomes of $50,000 or less, and the former first lady was wining a whopping 69 per cent of their votes.
Ms. Clinton won at least 16 of the 28 delegates at stake in West Virginia, to seven for Mr. Obama, with 5 more to be allocated.
That left Mr. Obama with 1,875.5 delegates to 1,712 for Ms. Clinton. It takes 2,026 to clinch the nomination at the party convention in Denver this summer, a total raised by one to reflect the election of Democrat Travis Childers to Congress in a special election in Mississippi during the evening.
Even so, Ms. Clinton's aides contended that her strength with blue-collar voters — already demonstrated in primaries in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana — makes her the more electable candidate in the fall.
In her remarks, Ms. Clinton said, "I deeply admire Sen. Obama," but she added, "our case is stronger." She said she had won roughly 17 million votes in the primaries and caucuses to date.
Ms. Clinton arranged a meeting with superdelegates for Wednesday. About 250 of them remain publicly uncommitted.
The delegate tally aside, the former first lady struggled to overcome an emerging Democratic consensus that Mr. Obama effectively wrapped up the nomination last week with a victory in the North Carolina primary and a narrow loss in Indiana.
He picked up four superdelegates during the day, including Roy Romer, former Democratic Party chairman.
"This race, I believe, is over," Mr. Romer told reporters on a conference call. He said only Clinton can decide when to withdraw, but he added: "There is a time we need to end it and direct ourselves to the general election. I think that time is now."
Ms. Clinton and Mr. Obama briefly shook hands on the Senate floor Tuesday after interrupting their campaigns for a few hours to vote on energy-related bills.
In the days since, close to 30 superdelegates have swung behind Mr. Obama, evidence that party officials are beginning to coalesce around the first-term Illinois senator who is seeking to become the first black to win a major party presidential nomination. Three of his new supporters formerly backed Ms. Clinton, who surrendered her lead in superdelegates late last week for the first time since the campaign began.
The former first lady spent parts of several days campaigning in West Virginia in search of victory.
She refrained from criticizing Mr. Obama directly, but had a cautionary word nonetheless for party leaders who seemed eager to pivot to the fall campaign. "I keep telling people, no Democrat has won the White House since 1916 without winning West Virginia," she said at Tudor's Biscuit World in the state's capital city.
Mr. Obama was in the state on Monday, but it was clear he was looking beyond the primary.
He said several days ago he expected Ms. Clinton to win by significant margins in West Virginia and then in Kentucky, which holds its primary next week. And on Monday, he tried to set the bar of expectations exceedingly low for himself, suggesting that anything above 20 per cent would constitute a good showing in West Virginia.
He devoted more time to Oregon, which also holds a primary next week, and announced plans to campaign in several other states that loom as battlegrounds in the fall against Mr. McCain.
Among them are Florida and Michigan, two states that held early primaries in defiance of national Democratic Party rules. The two combined have 44 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House, and Mr. Obama has not yet campaigned in either.
Mr. Obama also broke from his usual practice by wearing a flag pin on his suit jacket. He told several thousand people at the Charleston Civic Center that patriotism means more than saluting flags and holding parades.
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