Clinton wins tight Nevada race as Republicans battle in south
LAS VEGAS, Nevada (AFP) — Democratic White House hopeful Hillary Clinton outpolled Barack Obama in Nevada Saturday to notch up a second straight win over her rival, gaining a morale-booster ahead of the next vote.
The former first lady bidding to be America's first woman president won 51 percent of the popular vote in the Nevada caucuses, against 45 percent for Obama. John Edwards limped in third with four percent.
"This is one step on a long journey throughout the country as we put our cases forward and take that case to the people, and this was an especially wonderful day for me," Clinton told supporters.
But in a sign of how close the race is, Obama's campaign contended that the Illinois senator had in fact won more delegates to the national convention that will choose the Democrats' presidential candidate in the November election.
Jeff Berman, the director of delegate distribution for Obama, said Clinton had been beaten 13-12 on the delegate count, citing complicated rules on weighting of votes in northern and rural areas of Nevada.
Nevada Democratic Party chairwoman Jill Derby dismissed the claim, noting that the state party would only apportion its delegates for the August presidential convention on April 19.
"We're trying to figure out what they are basing this on," she told AFP.
In its own terse statement, the Clinton campaign said: "Hillary Clinton won the Nevada caucuses today by winning a majority of the delegates at stake. The Obama campaign is wrong."
The New York senator's fresh triumph over Obama gives her campaign a shot of energy ahead of South Carolina's Democratic primary next Saturday, leading into "Super Tuesday" on February 5 when 22 states will vote in Democratic contests.
Obama, who beat Clinton in Iowa at the start of the 2008 race, pledged that his bid to be the country's first black president was far from over.
"We ran an honest, uplifting campaign in Nevada that focused on the real problems Americans are facing, a campaign that appealed to people's hopes instead of their fears," he said.
"That's the campaign we'll take to South Carolina and across America in the weeks to come, and that's how we will truly bring about the change this country is hungry for."
The Republicans were Saturday already battling it out in South Carolina, after former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney easily won Nevada's Republican vote, adding to his victories in Michigan and Wyoming.
The wealthy former venture capitalist was the only top-tier Republican to campaign in Nevada, after his rivals had spurned the western desert state in favor of the South Carolina primary.
A winter storm chilled the normally balmy South Carolina, which has chosen the eventual Republican nominee in every race since 1980 and has even more influence this year heading into Super Tuesday.
Early results showed a dogfight between Senator John McCain and ex-Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who have both won a state each, with Romney and actor-turned-politician Fred Thompson lagging.
With 39 percent of precincts reporting, McCain had a narrow lead with 35 percent of the vote to Huckabee's 30 percent.
The laconic Thompson, a star of "Law and Order" and a former senator for Tennessee, was in third place on 15 percent, a point ahead of Romney.
Thompson gave no indication of whether he might pull out of the Republican race after failing to do better in South Carolina, despite belatedly picking up the pace of his campaigning in recent days.
McCain's campaign, fuming over dirty tricks in a state notorious for bare-knuckled politics, complained that some voters were turned away from polling stations in one coastal county after electronic voter machines failed.
At the Huckabee campaign headquarters in Columbia, nervous supporters erupted in cheers every time county results showed their man gaining on McCain, and groans if he slipped further behind.
Former South Carolina governor David Beasley noted that northern counties, which are full of evangelical Christians, were yet to report.
"Don't be discouraged. We're going to have a victory party tonight!" he told the troops.
