White House hopefuls eye next races

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton continue battle for Democratic nomination.

John McCain
John McCain emerged from Super Tuesday as the Republican front-runner [Reuters]
“I loaned it because I believe very strongly in this campaign,” she said at her headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, a state that votes next Tuesday.
 
Clinton raised about $14 million in January while Obama was boosted by garnering about $32 million.
 
Counting continues
 
Super Tuesday – state by state

States won by Democratic and Republican candidates, based on projections:

Democratic candidates

Hillary Clinton: Arkansas, Arizona, California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Tennessee (8)

Barack Obama: Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Utah (13)

Republican candidates

John McCain: Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma (9)

Mitt Romney: Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, Utah (6)

Mike Huckabee: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, West Virginia (5)

Clinton won eight states, including California and New York, while Barack Obama won 13 states.

 
Both candidates played up their performances on Tuesday while stressing there was a long way to go.
 
“We’ve got many more rounds to fight and you know I think that Senator Clinton remains the favourite because of the enormous familiarity people have with her and the institutional support she has,” Obama said in Chicago.
 
As delegate counting continued after Super Tuesday’s polls, Obama held 838 delegates of the 2,025 needed to secure the Democratic nomination, just ahead of Clinton who had 834, NBC news reported.
 
Clinton is battling the wave of momentum currently being enjoyed by Obama, who has surged in national polls on his message of change.
 
The state of New Mexico remained too close to call, media reports say.
 
The closeness of the  Democratic race means it could now last well into March, when Texas and Ohio vote, and perhaps all the way to the party convention in late August
 
Both camps now face gruelling campaigning ahead of the next round of primaries and caucuses, with Obama heading on to New Orleans,
Louisiana and Clinton expected to hold campaign events on Thursday in Virginia.
 
McCain surge

In video
Rob Reynolds on the super Tuesday raceundefined
James Bays on Hillary Clinton’s Super Tuesdayundefined
Ghida Fakhry on Barack Obama’s Super Tuesdayundefined
Kimberley Halkett on John McCain’s Super Tuesdayundefined

On the Republican side, McCain won nine states, including California and New York, according to projections, while his closest rival Mitt Romney could only take six.

McCain now holds 720 delegates out of a total of 1191, while Romney has 256 and Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, holds 194, NBC news reported.

As victory in many Republican state contests means that the winner secures all the delegates in that state, McCain has surged ahead of his competitors.

Mike Huckabee, who has been a distant third in the Republican race, took five states in Tuesday’s vote, mainly in the south of the country.

Huckabee split

Huckabee has won support from evangelical Christians, and he split votes with Romney among conservatives unhappy with McCain’s policies.

“We will unite the party behind our conservative principles and move forward to the general election in November,” McCain said in Phoenix, acknowledging conservative doubts about his past views on immigration, tax cuts and other issues.

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Both McCain and Romney are scheduled to address a key conference of conservatives in Washington on Thursday, while Huckabee was
scheduled to speak there on Saturday.

All three of the senators in the presidential race –  Obama, Clinton and McCain – returned to Washington on Wednesday to vote on an economic stimulus package in the Senate.

More than half the total delegates to the Democratic convention in August and about 40 per cent of the delegates to the Republican convention in September will be distributed from Tuesday’s vote.

Concerns over falling housing values, rising prices and unstable financial markets were the biggest concerns of voters in both parties and eclipsed the Iraq war as a voting issue, exit polls showed.

Source: Al Jazeera, News Agencies