Feb 6, 2008, 14:52 GMT
Washington - Senator John McCain staked a clear lead for the Republican presidential nomination, sweeping delegates in the big prizes of California, Illinois, New Jersey and New York in Tuesday's super primary results.
But Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, vying to become the first woman and African-American respectively in the presidency, came out of the night nearly in a dead heat, meaning the Democratic Party fell short of its hope of having one strong candidate emerge who could spend the coming nine months taking on the Republicans in the battle to reclaim the White House in November.
McCain, 71, was the clear victor by percentage in nine of 21 Republican state contests. While the state victories give his campaign momentum, the bottom line is the number of delegates he now has to the Republican nominating convention in September in St Paul, Minnesota.
According to preliminary projections by CNN, he picked up 503 delegates Tuesday night for a total of 615 since early January. To win the nomination, he needs 1,191 delegates, or half the total.
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, 60, took seven smaller states, leaving him with only 268 Republican delegate votes.
The big surprise was former Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, 52, a southerner and one-time Baptist minister who swept all five southern states up for grabs on Tuesday, including Georgia and Tennessee.
In Missouri, Huckabee lagged behind McCain by only 1 percentage point, leaving him with 169 Republican delegate votes according to CNN and making him a potentially formidable force at the convention and in the general elections.
The tallies are not official, and must be formally approved by the national party under varying state party rules.
On the Democratic side, Obama, 46, claimed top numbers in 13 states, many of them the less-populated Midwest states, adding 562 delegate votes to his quiver and bringing his unofficial delegate total to 732 since state voting began in January, CNN calculated.
While Clinton, 60, took only eight of 22 states, they included the large prizes of California, New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts, adding 582 delegate votes to bring her unofficial delegate total to 825 heading into the Democratic convention in August in Denver, Colorado.
To win the Democratic nomination, a candidate needs half the total, or 2,025 delegates.
Republicans use winner-take-all rules in most cases, while the Democrats carefully apportion delegate votes according to percentages received in primary voting.
With two evenly matched candidates like Obama and Clinton, the Democratic contest could continue until the last primary in early June and even into the convention, when uncommitted super delegates which include party and elected officials - and former president Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton's husband - could break any tie.
Your Talkback on this Story