Hillary Clinton won the South Dakota Democratic primary Tuesday night, FOX News projects — but The Associated Press has already determined that Barack Obama has clinched the nomination.
The AP reported earlier Tuesday that Obama had clinched the nomination based on superdelegate endorsements that have not yet been made public.
But South Dakota and Montana voters technically have the last word in this hard-fought, historic primary race.
Early returns in South Dakota showed Clinton leading Obama by 55-to-45 percent. Exit polls showed she is running especially well among elderly voters, female voters and voters who decided in the last three days, while Obama is doing well with younger and more affluent voters.
Obama appears to have been hurt by the controversy involving his church — almost 40 percent of voters said that his decision to leave the church was an important factor, and they preferred Clinton by 2-to-1.
Early exit polls showed Obama doing well in Montana, which will round out the marathon Democratic primary season when polls close there at 10 p.m. ET, five months after Obama wowed the political establishment with his lead-off Iowa caucus victory.
But since the states together are only worth 31 delegates, far more attention was paid Tuesday to the avalanche of superdelegates that supposedly fell into Obama’s camp throughout the day.
It takes 2,118 delegates to win, and the AP reported late in the day that he has 2,129.
In prepared remarks, Obama plans to declare “I will be the Democratic nominee for president of the United States” Tuesday evening in St. Paul, Minn., the site of this summer’s Republican National Convention.
Presumptive GOP nominee John McCain already took the opening shots at Obama, declaring Tuesday that “the general election campaign has begun” and saying: “This is, indeed, a change election … But the choice is between the right change and the wrong change, between going forward and going backward.”
McCain held a prime time speech Tuesday night in the New Orleans suburb of Kenner, La., in what is essentially a kickoff to his fall campaign. The backdrop to his address was a new banner that read: “A Leader We Can Believe In” — a direct swipe at Obama’s “Change We Can Believe In” slogan.
McCain also deflected charges that he is running for a third Bush term.
“Why does Senator Obama believe it’s so important to repeat that idea over and over again?” McCain said. “Because he knows it’s very difficult to get Americans to believe something they know is false. So he tries to drum it into your minds by constantly repeating it rather than debate honestly the very different directions he and I would take the country.”
Clinton’s campaign is denying reports she will concede, but the delegate math virtually assured Obama would become the first black presidential nominee of a major party.
The latest statement from the campaign claimed he was eight delegates away from locking down the race, with the help of several delegates formerly backing John Edwards. Campaign aides expected to earn at least that many delegates in the two final primaries.
Clinton aides told FOX News that the only concession she will make Tuesday night is that Obama “has a slight lead in the delegate count.” They said Clinton plans to claim she has won the popular vote, and is working up a victory-type speech for her address in New York City.
Click here to read what Women on the Web are saying about Sen. Clinton’s announcement.
“She is in this race until we have a nominee. We do not expect there to be one tonight,” Clinton spokesman Mo Elleithee said.
If that’s the case, aides notably left the door open for what would happen come Wednesday morning. Clinton also said on a conference call with New York lawmakers Tuesday that she is “open” to being Obama’s running mate if it would help the party.
Advisers said she was withholding a formal departure from the race partly to use her remaining leverage to press for a spot on the ticket.
Sources familiar with the contents of the conference call told FOX News that there was a “sense of resignation” from Clinton. According to one participant on the call, Clinton acknowledged she did not have the delegate math to overtake Obama, but just wanted to take time to determine how to exit the race.
Clinton supporter and New York Rep. Charlie Rangel talked up the concept Tuesday of an Obama-Clinton ticket Tuesday afternoon, telling FOX News she “will bring votes that Obama can’t.”
“Clinton brings meat to the ticket,” he said. “It’s a dream ticket.”
In another signal that Clinton might be coming to terms with her situation, Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe said once Obama gets the majority of convention delegates, “I think Hillary Clinton will congratulate him and call him the nominee.”
Ahead of Tuesday’s concluding primaries, Obama sought to set the stage for reconciliation, praising Clinton’s endurance and determination and offering to meet with her - on her terms - “once the dust settles” from their race.
