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Senator Barack Obama took a big step toward becoming the Democratic presidential nominee on Tuesday, amassing enough additional delegates to claim an all but insurmountable advantage in his race against Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
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Todd Heisler/The New York Times
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bill Clinton at Lynn’s Paradise Diner in Louisville, Ky., on Tuesday. More Photos »
With 88 percent of the vote counted in the Democratic primary in Oregon on Tuesday, Mr. Obama had 58 percent of the vote to Mrs. Clinton’s 42 percent. In Kentucky, with all votes counted, Mrs. Clinton had 72 percent to Mr. Obama’s 27 percent.
Both candidates moved on to Florida on Wednesday for more campaigning.
While Mrs. Clinton’s campaign continued to make a case that she could prevail, Mr. Obama seized on the results in Kentucky and Oregon to move into a new phase of the campaign in which he will face different challenges. Those include bringing disaffected Clinton supporters into his camp; winning over elements of the Democratic coalition like working-class whites, Hispanics and Jews; and fending off attacks from Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, especially on national security.
While Mr. Obama won easily in Oregon, his obstacles were underlined by the lopsided defeat in Kentucky, where just half of the Democratic voters said in exit polls that they would back him in the general election this fall.
Under the rules used by Democrats, the split decision was enough for Mr. Obama to secure a majority of the delegates up for grabs in primaries and caucuses. His campaign has portrayed success in winning those pledged delegates as the most important yardstick for judging the will of Democratic voters, and has encouraged superdelegates — elected officials and party leaders who have an automatic vote at the convention — to fall in line accordingly.
“We have returned to Iowa with a majority of delegates elected by the American people, and you have put us within reach of the Democratic nomination for president of the United States of America,” Mr. Obama said in an address on Tuesday night, standing in front of a moonlit Capitol in Des Moines.
Even as Mr. Obama moved closer to making history as the first black presidential nominee, he stopped short of declaring victory in the Democratic race, part of a carefully calibrated effort in the remaining weeks of the contest to avoid appearing disrespectful to Mrs. Clinton and alienating her supporters. Instead, he offered lavish praise for his rival over 16 months.
“Senator Clinton has shattered myths and broken barriers and changed the America in which my daughters and your daughters will come of age, and for that we are grateful to her,” Mr. Obama said.
Mrs. Clinton, declaring victory in Kentucky, made clear that she had no intention of stepping aside before the Democratic voting ends on June 3. “This is one of the closest races for a party’s nomination in modern history,” she said. “We are winning the popular vote, and I am more determined than ever to see that every vote is cast and every ballot is counted.”
A Clinton supporter, Representative Jane Harman, Democrat of California, appearing on CNN on Wednesday morning, urged Mr. Obama to choose Mrs. Clinton as his vice presidential candidate. She said “the enthusiastic support of each base” would be needed by the Democrats in November.After Tuesday night’s nominating contests, The Associated Press projected that Mr. Obama had 1,956 of the 2,026 pledged delegates and superdelegates needed to claim the nomination, compared to Mrs. Clinton’s 1,776 total delegates. Mr. Obama’s campaign estimated that if he simply held his own in the three remaining contests — in Montana, South Dakota and Puerto Rico — he would then need only 25 more votes from superdelegates to secure the nomination. There are 221 undeclared superdelegates left; Mr. Obama has been rolling out new endorsements from superdelegates almost daily.
But even as he moved closer to winning the intensely fought nominating contest with Mrs. Clinton — a battle suffused with history and the tension inherent in a campaign defined in part by race and gender — Mr. Obama was preparing to deal with a series of challenges in the weeks ahead.
He was planning a vigorous schedule of travel to general election states and a voter registration drive focusing on black voters to offset any losses among whites. Aides said he was considering delivering another speech to deal with damage in the primary because of attacks on his relationship with his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., as well as on his patriotism.
“We know we have our work cut out for us,” said Steve Hildebrand, a deputy campaign manager for Mr. Obama. “But we are up to the task.”
At the same time, Mr. Obama’s aides said they were not concerned with exit polls showing that he had hemorrhaged white working-class voters to Mrs. Clinton in Kentucky, mirroring similar findings in Indiana, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Many Clinton voters in Kentucky said they would stay home or vote for Mr. McCain in the fall. Two in 10 Democratic voters in Kentucky said race was a factor in their choice, and they overwhelmingly voted for Mrs. Clinton.
