Clinton sweeps West Virginia

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton scored a resounding victory in West Virginia yesterday that supporters hailed as a turning point in her sinking hopes to win the Democratic presidential nomination and that detractors dismissed as meaningless.

The results signaled further trouble for Sen. Barack Obama, as the Clinton campaign crowed that he has been unable to win battleground states.

“This race isn’t over yet,” Mrs. Clinton told cheering fans in Charleston, W.Va. “The bottom line is this: The White House is won in the swing states, and I am winning the swing states.”

The senator from New York who toppled from front-runner to underdog status in the past four months promised to fight on while asking for more campaign contributions. She also admonished “the pundits and the naysayers” who have declared Mr. Obama the nominee.

Mrs. Clinton called the result an “overwhelming vote of confidence.”

“I am more determined than ever to carry on this campaign until everyone has had a chance to make their voices heard,” she said. “You will never quit, and I won’t either.”

Mrs. Clinton won 67 percent to Mr. Obama’s 26 percent one of her widest victories. But even the margin and the state’s role as a November battleground won’t change the mathematical odds against Mrs. Clinton’s winning enough delegates to become the party nominee.

Her advisers map out a path that includes a victory in Kentucky and a closer-than-expected finish in Oregon on Tuesday, followed by a big win in Puerto Rico that could help drive up her popular vote totals.

As it stands, Mr. Obama holds a lead in all measures, including in superdelegates — party leaders and elected officials — among whom she once dominated because of respect for her family within the Democratic establishment.

“There is no question that Senator Clinton is going to win by huge margins in the upcoming primaries in West Virginia today and Kentucky next week. She has poured resources into both states, and she, former President Clinton and Chelsea Clinton have all campaigned extraordinarily hard there,” the Obama campaign wrote in a memo before West Virginia polls closed.

Mr. Obama was not campaigning last night, so he did not speak about the results. Staffers said Mr. Obama called a Clinton aide to congratulate the senator but could not reach her and had to leave a message.

Exit polls showed a deep racial divide among voters. One-quarter of Clinton voters said race was an important factor in their choice of the former first lady over the man who would be the first black president. Mr. Obama also continued to show problems with lower-income voters: They favored Mrs. Clinton by nearly 50 percentage points.

Also bothersome for Democrats hoping for a unified party in November, only 36 percent of Clinton voters said they would vote for Mr. Obama if he is the nominee. About half of Obama supporters said the same for Mrs. Clinton.

With a victory in the 2-1 neighborhood, Mrs. Clinton would earn at least 18 delegates to Mr. Obama’s eight or nine, and the Obama memo noted that the West Virginia count means little compared with the 28 superdelegate endorsements their boss won in the past week. Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, who dropped out in January, was still on the ballot and earned 7 percent.

Before the results were tallied last night, the Obama team announced that he was 147 delegates away from securing the nomination under Democratic National Committee rules, but Mrs. Clinton last night repeated her argument for a figure that includes the delegates from the disputed primaries in Florida and Michigan.

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