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RALEIGH, North Carolina : Barack Obama appeared on Wednesday to be closing in on the Democratic presidential nomination after trouncing Hillary Clinton in the North Carolina primary and battling to a close finish in Indiana.
The Illinois senator rebounded from weeks of mis-steps and controversy that had threatened to derail his bid to become the first black US president by thrashing Clinton 56-42 percent in North Carolina on Tuesday.
The former first lady took Indiana by 51-49 percent but only after an agonisingly slow vote count that saw her commanding early lead whittled down to a mere 22,000 votes in a nail-biting finish.
The results left Obama 183 delegates shy of the 2,025 needed for the nomination and Clinton virtually out of options to overtake him in the six contests remaining before the end of the primary season on June 3.
Analysts agreed pressure would grow on the party's super-delegates, the Democratic leaders who hold the key to the tight nomination race, to back Obama. Clinton was likely to face mounting calls to quit, they said.
Obama, 46, used his victory speech in North Carolina to cast himself as the Democrats' heir-apparent for the November 4 election against Republican John McCain.
"Tonight we stand less than 200 delegates away from securing the Democratic nomination for president of the United States," he told thousands of deliriously cheering supporters in Raleigh.
"This fall, we intend to march forward as one Democratic Party, united by a common vision for this country," he said.
"Because we all agree that at this defining moment in history - a moment when we're facing two wars, an economy in turmoil, a planet in peril - we can't afford to give John McCain the chance to serve out (President) George Bush's third term."
Although Tuesday's results fell far short of the "game-changer" Clinton predicted would transform the race, the New York senator hailed her victory in Indiana and said it was "full speed on to the White House."
To underline her determination to fight on, she and her weary entourage scheduled an early Wednesday trip to West Virginia, the scene of the next primary battle on May 13.
But the 60-year-old Clinton also showed signs of resignation, stressing in her Indiana victory speech that "no matter what happens, I will work for the nominee of the Democratic Party, because we must win in November."
The primaries in North Carolina and Indiana, with a total of 187 delegates at stake, represented Clinton's last chance to roll up a big score and change the dynamics of the race. But Obama was the clear winner.
He bested Clinton by more than 200,000 votes between the two states and picked up a net gain of 13 nominating delegates to the party's convention this August in Denver, Colorado.
Obama also boosted his case among the nearly 800 "superdelegates" whom Clinton had been wooing with the argument that her inexperienced rival would go down in flames against McCain.
Only six primaries, with a total of 217 delegates at stake, remain: West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, Montana and South Dakota, and the US territory of Puerto Rico.
Exit polls Tuesday said Obama, buffeted by weeks of controversy over racially tinged remarks by his former pastor, had won massive black support but barely a third of the white vote in North Carolina.
He scored well, however, with voters in terms of his identifying with their values, suggesting he had deflected Clinton's accusation that he is an "elitist" out of touch with blue-collar voters.
Running out of cards to play, Clinton clung to the possibility that she could put back in play the states of Florida and Michigan, where favourable results were voided by the national party in a procedural dispute.
She said the true finish line of the presidential race was 2,209 delegates - including Florida and Michigan. But Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean said the delegate target remained 2,025.
"There's going to be a compromise, is what I would predict," he said on MSNBC, ahead of a May 31 meeting of the DNC's rules committee on the Florida-Michigan headache.
"We'll have a nominee by the end of June," Dean vowed, playing down fears of a convention brawl in August. - AFP/de
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