Clinton Beats Obama in Kentucky

Hillary Clinton beat Barack Obama overwhelmingly tonight in the Kentucky primary but he still edged closer to securing the Democratic nomination.

With 95% votes counted, she had 65% to Obama's 30% in Kentucky. Voting was still underway in Oregon, where Obama is favoured.

Clinton, in a victory speech in Kentucky, thanked voters for turning out in huge numbers to back her and defying those who said the contest against Obama was effectively over.

While the result will not hold back Obama from moving towards the nomination, the results exposed disturbing divisions in the Democratic party.

Only a third of Clinton voters in Kentucky said they were prepared to vote for Obama in the November general election, with the others saying they would go instead for the Republican John McCain.

There was better news for Obama from the exit polls in Oregon, a more liberal state, where a majority of Clinton voters said they would support Obama.

Both Kentucky and Oregon are overwhelmingly white.

Obama's campaign team said at the weekend he would declare symbolic victory because the results from Kentucky and Oregon would give him a majority of the elected delegates. He held his post-election party in Iowa, where he won his first victory on January 3.

But he heeded advice from his own team that triumphalism would play badly with the party and that he should allow the race to run its course, with only three contests left, ending on June 3.

In a further sign of Obama's strength, his campaign announced that it raised $31.3m last month, recruiting 200,000 new donors.

Clinton's campaign said she had raised $22m in April. The figure does not include a $5m loan from the Clinton family. The campaign has debts of $20m.

Obama, intent on not knocking Clinton down, congratulated her on the victory and praised her for her 35 years of service to the American people. "We have had our disagreements during this campaign, but we all admire her courage, her commitment and her perseverance. No matter how this primary ends, Senator Clinton has shattered myths and broken barriers and changed the America in which my daughters and yours will come of age," he said.

Clinton was also conciliatory in her victory speech, saying she and Obama were agreed on uniting the party behind the eventual nominee.

She made it clear that she was determined to stay in the contest, and that she would push for Florida and Michigan delegates to be seated at the Democratic convention in August.

But for the first time she also felt compelled to explain why she was fighting on against nearly insurmountable odds. "I have done it not because of wanting to demonstrate my toughness, but because I believe passionately that for the sake of the country the Democrats must take back the White House," she said.Voters in Kentucky were concerned mainly about the recession but race was again an important factor, as in Pennsylvania and last week's primary in West Virginia.

Voting was still underway in Oregon when the Kentucky polls closed. Obama, according to polls over the last few weeks, was expected to do much better in Oregon.

Under the Democrats proportional representation system, Obama picked up in Kentucky a share of the 51 delegates at stake. The delegates will choose the Democratic nominee at the party convention in August: Obama only needs to reach 2,026 delegates to secure the nomination.

He started the night with 1,917 delegates to Clinton's 1,722 and was today expected to be fewer than 100 short of the magic number.

Obama's team had predicted that Kentucky and Oregon would provide him with the delegates he needed to claim a moral victory, a majority of the delegates elected in more than 50 primaries and caucuses since January 3. He will hope to pick up superdelegates, those with automatic voting rights, such as members of Congress, over the next week or two to reach the magic number.

Eight in 10 Clinton supporters in Kentucky said they would not be happy if Obama is the Democratic nominee, according to CBS exit polls. Only 33% said they would vote for him in the general election; 41% said they would vote for McCain and 23% said they would not vote at all.

The divisions were less stark in Oregon, however, where exit polls suggested that most Clinton voters would be happy with Obama as the nominee. Some 68% of Clinton supporters would back Obama against McCain, the CBS poll found.

Voters in both states saw the economy as the most important issue, but they split on proposals by both McCain and Clinton to suspend the petrol tax over the summer. In Kentucky, 57% of voters supported the gas tax holiday, but 63% of Oregon voters thought it was a bad idea.

In Kentucky, Clinton won over about two-thirds of voters who said they were concerned about the economy. She also ran much better than Obama among voters concerned about social values, reflecting Kentucky's relatively conservative electorate.