Clinton Wins Nevada Caucus

LAS VEGAS, Nevada (AFP) – Democratic White House hopeful Hillary Clinton hit the jackpot in the gambling haven of Nevada Saturday as Republicans waged their own high-stakes battle in South Carolina.

With most of the votes counted from Nevada’s Democratic caucuses, the former first lady who would be the first woman US president, was on course for a comfortable win over her main rival Barack Obama, US television networks projected.

Clinton had 50.5 percent of the vote and Obama 45.4, with 84 percent of Nevada precincts reporting, the state’s Democratic Party reported. Former vice presidential nominee John Edwards had just 3.9 percent.

“This is a huge win for Hillary,” Clinton’s campaign manager Terry McAuliffe said on the MSNBC network.

Voters in Nevada and nationally “know she is the change agent, they know she is going to get the country moving again,” he said.

In Nevada’s Republican caucuses, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney was projected to be the winner, but his rivals had largely spurned the western desert state in favor of South Carolina.

A winter storm chilled the normally balmy state of South Carolina, which has chosen the eventual Republican nominee in every race since 1980 and has an even more influential role now heading into “Super Tuesday” on February 5.

On that date, more than 20 states will be up for grabs. The next clash is South Carolina’s Democratic primary next Saturday, now an even bigger battleground for Obama after his loss in Nevada.

Obama’s foreign policy advisor Susan Rice said her candidate would continue to run an “insurgent campaign” to bring change to the United States.

“Hillary Clinton enjoyed the establishment support in Nevada. This is a good showing for Barack Obama, quite frankly, better than anyone could have anticipated a few weeks ago,” she said on MSNBC.

Polls suggested South Carolina’s Republican primary would be a dogfight between Senator John McCain and ex-Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, winners of one state each so far, with Romney and Fred Thompson also in contention.

Outside Dreher High School in Columbia, McCain backer Wade Mullins said under a steady drizzle of rain and sleet: “I’m a young guy, the weather doesn’t bother me. I wanted to make sure my vote counted.

“It’s going to be a close race and I strongly believe in my candidate, John McCain,” he said.

McCain’s campaign, fuming over dirty tricks in a state notorious for bare-knuckled politics, complained that some voters were being turned away from polling stations in one coastal county after electronic voter machines failed.

Baptist preacher Huckabee had his own problems with the weather worst in his upstate strongholds, the bastion of South Carolina’s powerful evangelical Christian community.

The Nevada caucuses were modeled on Iowa’s, where Obama was the winner. But unlike mild-mannered Iowa, caucuses in Las Vegas casinos resembled ringside on boxing night as raucous Clinton and Obama backers chanted for their candidate.

New York Senator Clinton and Illinois Senator Obama had engaged in frenzied campaigning across Nevada, notable for its large Hispanic community and heavily unionized labor force.

The Nevada campaign had been marked by a feud over plans to set up massive voting centers inside Las Vegas Strip casinos in order to encourage participation by shift workers.

Obama had won the backing of the 60,000-member culinary workers union, which dominates the casinos, but many in the casinos and other grass-roots Democratic voters appeared to prefer Clinton.

There was relentless sniping between the front-runners, with Clinton Friday pouncing on Obama’s remarks in a newspaper interview that appeared to praise former Republican president Ronald Reagan.

In South Carolina, polls averaged by RealClearPolitics.com had McCain and Huckabee both with just over a quarter of voter support each, with Romney, who was coming off a victory in the Michigan primary last Tuesday, in third.

But Thompson, a star of “Law and Order” and a former senator for Tennessee, was hoping his strong stance to the right of his opponents would earn support from conservatives.

The polls were scheduled to close at 7:00 pm (0001 GMT Sunday), and results were to start coming in shortly afterwards.