Hillary Clinton wins critical primaries in Texas and Ohio to stay alive in the Democratic presidential race. On the Republican side, John Mccain clinches the Republican presidential nomination
COLUMBUS, OHIO, UNITED STATES (MARCH 4, 2008) - Hillary Clinton swept critical showdowns with Barack Obama in Ohio and Texas on Tuesday (March 4) to keep her Democratic presidential bid alive, and John McCain clinched the Republican nomination and looked ahead to the November election.
The victories for Clinton, a New York senator, snapped Obama's winning streak at 12 and defied widespread predictions that defeats in Ohio and Texas would force her out of the White House race.
The hard-fought Democratic presidential duel moves on to contests in Wyoming and Mississippi and the next major showdown in Pennsylvania on April 22, with Clinton still trailing Obama in the pledged delegates who will choose the nominee at the August convention.
"We're going on, we're going strong, and we're going all the way," Clinton told roaring supporters in Columbus, Ohio. "We're just getting started."
Exit polls showed Clinton won big among voters who decided in the last few days, when she questioned Obama's readiness to be commander in chief and the sincerity of his pledges to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, which is blamed in Ohio for manufacturing job losses.
Clinton's triumph in Texas followed wins in Ohio and Rhode Island earlier in the evening, breaking Obama's month-long string of victories in the state contests to pick a Democratic candidate for the November U.S. election.
The Illinois senator's streak has left Clinton trailing in the number of delegates to the summer convention that will pick the presidential candidate, and analysts said the New York senator needed to win Texas and Ohio to slow his momentum and have a chance of catching him.
"No matter what happens tonight we have nearly the same delegate lead we did this morning, and we are on our way to winning this nomination," Obama told his supporters in San Antonio, Texas.
Obama's only win of the evening came in Vermont.
Under Democratic rules allowing the losers in each state to win a proportional amount of delegates, Clinton must win many of the remaining contests by big margins to close the delegate gap.
McCain's four big victories in Vermont, Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island drove his last major rival, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, out of the race and gave McCain more than the 1,191 delegates needed to win the nomination.
President George W. Bush will endorse the Arizona senator at the White House on Wednesday.
"I understand the responsibilities I incur with this nomination, and I give you my word, I will not evade or slight a single one. Our campaign must be, and will be more than another tired debate of false promises, empty sound-bites, or useless arguments from the past that address not a single American's concerns for their family's security," McCain, 71, told supporters in Dallas.
In his victory speech, McCain took aim at both of his Democratic opponents and criticized their pledges to revisit U.S. trade treaties, punish companies that send jobs overseas and withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq.
McCain has had trouble winning over conservatives unhappy with his views on immigration, his past opposition to Bush's tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, and his criticism of some religious conservative leaders as "agents of intolerance" during his failed 2000 presidential campaign.
