McCain and Clinton look to next battle
Mr McCain narrowly defeated rival Mike Huckabee on Saturday in South Carolina — a state where Mr McCain’s presidential hopes were destroyed in a bitter 2000 battle that set George W Bush on a path to the White House.
“It took us a while, but what’s eight years among friends,” Mr McCain, an Arizona senator, told cheering supporters in Charles- ton. “We are well on our way, and I feel very good.”
In Nevada’s Democratic race, Ms Clinton beat Barack Obama in a close struggle that featured voting in the state’s famed casino hotels. The pair had split the first two Democratic contests and ended up disputing who held the upper hand.
“I guess this is how the west was won,” Ms Clinton, a New York senator, said in Las Vegas. She told reporters later: “This is one step on a long journey throughout the country.”
Although Ms Clinton won more votes (51% to 45%), Mr Obama said that because of his strength in some areas outside Las Vegas, he would have the support of 13 delegates to Ms Clinton’s 12 at August’s Democratic convention. Delegates select the presidential nominee.
Nevada Democratic Party head Jill Derby issued a statement saying Mr Obama had the edge if the delegate count held, but this would only be decided finally between now and April.
Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, won a Republican race in Nevada that his rivals largely skipped in order to concentrate on South Carolina.
No candidate in either party has claimed the front- runner’s role in the race to pick the two candidates to contest the November 4 election to succeed Mr Bush.
The US presidential nominating battle now turns to the south, where the next fights will be South Carolina’s Democratic primary on Saturday and Florida’s Republican primary on January 29.
Then both parties turn attention to the February 5 Super Tuesday round of 22 state contests, a big shift from the intimate politics of early-voting states to coast-to-coast flights and big-budget ad campaigns.
The Florida Republican race will mark the debut of former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who has seen his once-substantial lead in national opinion polls disappear as he sat on the sidelines through the first presidential nominating contests.
Mr Giuliani has gambled that a win in Florida will propel him to a strong day on February 5 in populous states like New York, California, New Jersey and Illinois.
For the victors on Saturday, the prize was a jolt of energy in a race where momentum has been short- lived.
Ms Clinton, who would be the first US woman president, won the Nevada Democratic race, 51% to 45% over Mr Obama, with turnout reported to surpass 115,000 voters. Former North Carolina Sen John Edwards finished a distant third.
Mr McCain’s victory in South Carolina, which followed a New Hampshire win, was fuelled by support from conservatives, with exit polls showing 70% voters in the state primary described themselves as such.
SOUTH CAROLINA
John McCain33%
Mike Huckabee30%
Fred Thompson16%
Hillary Clinton51%
Barack Obama45%
John Edwards4%
Mitt Romney51%
Ron Paul14%
John McCain13%
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