Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton battled to a draw on "Super Tuesday" and John McCain took charge of the Republican race in coast-to-coast presidential nominating battles in 24 U.S. states.
In their hard-fought Democratic duel, Obama won 13 states and Clinton took eight, ensuring a long and difficult battle for the nomination. Clinton's wins included the key prizes of California and New York on the biggest day of U.S. presidential voting before the November 4 election.
"There is one thing on this February night that we do not need the final results to know: Our time has come," Obama told cheering supporters in Chicago. "Our movement is real, and change is coming to America."
McCain won nine contests, including victories in California and the Northeast, to take a daunting lead in the Republican race. He captured a huge haul of the convention delegates who select the party's presidential nominee, taking several big states where delegates are granted on a winner-take-all basis.
Republican rivals Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee kept their hopes alive and vowed to fight on, but could face growing questions about the viability of their campaigns. Romney won seven states and Huckabee won five.
"Tonight, I think we must get used to the idea that we are the Republican Party front-runner for the nomination," McCain told supporters in Scottsdale, Arizona. "And I don't really mind it one bit."
RACE SET TO CONTINUE
The mixed results, with all contenders in both parties scoring at least five wins, appeared certain to prolong the hard-fought nominating races. A new round of contests in a half-dozen states are scheduled within the next week.
The Clinton and Obama camps said they expected the count of delegates for the night to wind up relatively even. "We think the delegates are going to be very close and we may end up with an edge there," Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said.
McCain, who lost the Republican primary race in 2000 to George W. Bush, still faces a struggle to win over conservatives in the party, who have been unhappy with his views on immigration, tax cuts and campaign finance reform.
"I am convinced Senator McCain is not a conservative, and in fact has gone out of his way to stick his thumb in the eyes of those who are," James Dobson, the founder of the conservative group Focus on the Family, said on Tuesday in a statement delivered to a talk show host.
National exit polls showed more than half of Democratic voters ranked the ability to bring change as the top attribute for a candidate. Nearly one-quarter of Democrats voting in the party's 22 contests ranked experience, Clinton's selling card, as the most important attribute.
About 44 percent of Republican voters preferred a candidate who shared their values, while one-quarter wanted a candidate with experience.
