By DPA
Hershey (US) : Hillary Clinton was headed for a strong victory over rival Barack Obama in Pennsylvania’s Democratic presidential primary Tuesday.
With more than 50 percent of precincts reporting, Clinton had 55 percent to Obama’s 45 percent as the former first lady battles to keep her White House bid alive.
Obama holds the lead in delegates to the party’s nominating convention in August, and analysts had said Clinton needed a significant win to gain momentum for the nine remaining intra-party contests and stave off demands that she step aside.
Obama, 46, admitted Monday that he expected a Clinton victory in the state, but Clinton, 60, has said that any win would be significant after six weeks of tireless and increasingly negative campaigning.
Clinton’s edge of as much as 20 points several weeks ago had been whittled to as little as five percentage points by Obama, who has outspent her on advertising by more than two-to-one in Pennsylvania.
Voters turned out in droves across the state Tuesday, with the economy and health care on their minds and the fate of Clinton’s presidential ambitions in their hands.
Nationally, Obama has a small lead of 150 delegates in the race to the Democratic nominating convention in August, where 2,024 delegates are needed to reach a majority.
Pennsylvania had 158 delegates are up for grabs Tuesday and only about 500 are left in the remaining nine contests. Indiana and North Carolina are next on May 6.
Even if Clinton fell short of a significant win in Pennsylvania, the New York senator had indicated that she won’t back down, and her stance was welcomed by her supporters at a polling station in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
“Sometimes we’ve got to go through pain to gain, and if it’s for the right person to be the nominee, it’s absolutely necessary,” said Suzanne Brinser, 40, after voting for Clinton.