Kerry campaign gathers steam after affair denial
The Vietnam war hero was campaigning hard ahead of today's primary in Wisconsin, which is expected to see him extend his lead in the series of state votes.
Mr Kerry's rival, Howard Dean, had earlier suggested he would pull out of the race if he lost in Wisconsin.
But days before the rumours about Mr Kerry emerged on the Drudge Report website he appeared to change his mind.
Still, if Mr Dean does fail to win in Wisconsin, he looks set to lose his campaign manager. "If Howard Dean does not win the Wisconsin primary, I will reach out to John Kerry unless he reaches out to me first," Steven Grossman told the New York Times.
It would mark another devastating blow for former Vermont Governor Dean, whose campaign failed to recover from a shock defeat when the state of Iowa was first to vote last month.
Mr Kerry has won in all of the states to have voted so far, except Oklahoma, which favoured retired General Wesley Clark now out of the race and South Carolina, which backed North Caroline Senator John Edwards, who is being touted as a potential running mate for Mr Kerry.
The primaries and caucuses determine how many delegates each candidate sends to the party's national convention in the summer. Effectively, the candidate with most delegates wins the official party backing to run against Mr Bush.
After Wisconsin the next major test comes on Super Tuesday, March 2, when 11 states vote including New York and California.
Mr Kerry appears set for big wins on Super Tuesday and could virtually seal victory then. He continued his runaway campaign yesterday, accusing Mr Bush of failing to learn the lessons of Vietnam. "This president, regrettably, has perhaps not learned some of the lessons of that period of time, when we had a very difficult war," he said.
However, with rumours that news organisations in the US are pursuing the intern story, there is still the potential for a scandal to bring his campaign crashing down.
