Barack Obama said he emerged from Super Tuesday as the leader in the delegate count over Hillary Clinton in a Democratic presidential race that both campaigns expect will be a protracted battle. Clinton's advisers said the two candidates would end up after yesterday's voting separated by no more than five or six delegates, who will determine the party's nominee for the general election in November. ``Two weeks ago, nobody thought we would come out of Feb. 5th standing,'' Obama, an Illinois senator, said this morning in Chicago. ``But we won more delegates and we won more states.''
Super Tuesday left Arizona Senator John McCain in clear command of the Republican presidential contest with victories in nine of 21 states holding contests, including six that awarded delegates on a winner-take-all basis.
Democratic delegates, which are awarded based on a combination of popular votes statewide and results in congressional districts, were still being tallied in states such as New Mexico and Missouri because of close margins between the two Democratic candidates.
David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager, said during a conference call this morning that the candidate accumulated 847 delegates to Clinton's 834 by winning more states than Clinton did and piling up large margins of victory in those states. That would bring the overall delegate count to 910 for Obama and 882 for Clinton, he said.