By SPA
Washington : Presidential candidates in the United States focused their attention on the country’s capital Washington D.C. and the surrounding states of Maryland and Virginia on Monday, ahead of a Tuesday election for both parties.
D.C., Maryland and Virginia will hold their primary votes on Tuesday, in what is being called the Potomac Primary by many, after the Potomac River that flows through all three areas.
The voting comes after weekend ballots in Washington state, Louisiana, Nebraska and Maine. Democratic contender Senator Barack Obama (Illinois) won all four states, forcing opponent Senator Hillary Clinton (New York) to shake up her campaign team and rebut claims that her candidacy was out of momentum.
In the wake of her weekend losses, Clinton’s campaign announced that her campaign manager would be replaced. Clinton characterized Patti Solis Doyle’s resignation as personal, but most observers suggested the campaign was responding to unexpected setbacks.
Clinton is not expected to perform well on Tuesday’s vote, or upcoming votes in Wisconsin and Hawaii, but her campaign is already looking ahead to a March 4 vote in Texas and Ohio – states that carry a large number of the delegates needed to secure a party’s nomination.
“I believe if you look at the states … upcoming, I am very confident,” she said.
On the Republican side, voters in Washington state, Louisiana and Kansas went to the polls. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee snatched Southern states Louisiana and Kansas from frontrunner Senator John McCain (Arizona), though McCain appeared to win in Washington.
But Huckabee’s campaign said it would challenge the Washington result, which it said was decided with only 87% of the vote counted. The former governor said just 245 votes separated him and McCain when the state stopped counting, leaving approximately 1,500 votes not tallied.
Huckabee is trailing McCain significantly, but has pledged to stay in the race until one candidate earns the 1,191 delegate votes needed to secure the Republican nomination.
On the national level meanwhile, an Associated Press poll released Monday suggested Obama would narrowly defeat McCain in a potential match-up. Clinton and McCain were statistically even among a survey of voters.