Clinton edges ahead in Super Tuesday battle

Hillary Clinton edged ahead of Barack Obama today in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination as results from the Super Tuesday elections came in.

The former First Lady will win delegate-rich California, CNN projected, and the pair split the Democratic Party vote across more than 20 states which went to the polls.

In the Republican contest, John McCain, whose campaign was dismissed as virtually over last summer, declared himself to be the party’s front-runner for the nomination after a series of victories in key winner-take-all states.

Clinton campaign aides declared her victory in Massachusetts as “one of the biggest surprises of the night”.

She took the state even after veteran Senator Ted Kennedy, former Democratic Party presidential nominee John Kerry and state governor Deval Patrick had endorsed Mr Obama.

Mrs Clinton, who wants to be America’s first female president, also won her home state of New York, neighbouring New Jersey and secured comfortable victories in Oklahoma, Tennessee and Arkansas.

Mr Obama, who wants to be the first African American president, built on his landslide victory in South Carolina as he won the Southern states of Georgia and Alabama.

The Illinois senator also won his delegate-rich home state, Kansas, Delaware, North Dakota, Minnesota, Connecticut, Colorado, Idaho and Utah.

At the Clinton campaign headquarters in Manhattan, Mrs Clinton took to the stage with her husband, former president Bill Clinton, and daughter Chelsea to chants of “Hillary, Hillary, Hillary.”

Mrs Clinton, who wants to be the first female president, said Americans voted “not just to make history but to remake America”.

She added: “Give us this nation to heal, this world to lead, this moment to seize. I know we’re ready.”

Adopting a sombre tone, she asked her supporters to keep the people of Arkansas and Tennessee in their prayers after “horrible” tornados swept through the states on Super Tuesday.

Early reports suggested at least 15 people were killed.

“People have died in both states and our thoughts and our prayers go out to them in the moment of their need,” Mrs Clinton said.

In Chicago, Illinois, Mr Obama, who wants to be the first black American president, said: “There is one thing on this February night that we do not need the final results to know: Our time has come.

“Our time has come, our movement is real and change is coming to America.”

He congratulated Mrs Clinton and said she was a friend who was running “an outstanding race”.

“But this fall we owe the American people a real choice,” he said.

“We have to choose between change and more of the same. We have to choose between looking backwards and looking forwards. We have to choose between our future and our past.”

Mr Obama told supporters it was a choice of going into the general election with Republicans and Independents “already united against us” or “going against their nominee with a campaign that has united Americans of all parties, from all backgrounds, from all races, from all religions around a common purpose”.

He also said his thoughts and prayers were with the victims of the storms in Arkansas and Tennessee.

In the Republican contest, former Vietnam prisoner of war Mr McCain, whose campaign was dismissed as virtually over last summer, will take the biggest state of California, CNN projected.

He also won a series of key states – including his home state of Arizona, Missouri, Delaware, New Jersey, and New York – where he will take every one of more than 280 delegates. Mr McCain also won in Illinois and Oklahoma.

Addressing supporters at his campaign headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona, he said: “Tonight my friends, we’ve won a number of important victories in the closest thing we’ve ever had to a national primary.

“We’ve won some of the biggest states in the country.

“We’ve won primaries in the west, the south, the mid-west and the north east; and while I’ve never minded the role of the underdog, and have relished as much as anyone come-from-behind wins, tonight I think we must get used to the idea that we are the Republican party front-runner for the nomination.

“And I don’t really mind it one bit.”

He went on: “You know, I am, as is often reported, a little superstitious, so I don’t want to make any exaggerated predictions, and there’s still a long road ahead.

“However, I think it’s fair to say that we might have come a little bit closer to the day when mothers in Arizona might be able to tell their children that some day they could grow up to become president of the United States.”

He also congratulated rivals Mike Huckabee, who he said “surprised the rest of us” with wins in West Virginia, Arkansas and Alabama, and Mitt Romney, who won Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Dakota and Utah.

At the Romney campaign headquarters in Boston, the former Massachusetts governor told his supporters that the “one thing that’s clear is this campaign’s going on”.

To chants of “Mitt, Mitt, Mitt”, he said: “I think there were some people who thought it was all going to be done tonight, but it’s not all done tonight, we’re going to keep on battling, we’re going to go all the way to the convention and we’re going to win this thing and we’re going to get to the White House.”

Speaking to supporters at his campaign headquarters in Little Rock, Arkansas, Mr Huckabee said: “Over the past few days, a lot of people have been trying to say that this is a two-man race.

“Well, you know what, it is – and we’re in it.

“Tonight, we’re proving that we’re still on our feet and much to the amazement of many, we’re getting there folks, we’re getting there.”

He said his supporters would help him become the 44th president of America in a few months.