Clinton: The Comeback Kid 2?

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Blacks, who have voted heavily for Obama this year, accounted for roughly 20 percent of the votes cast, roughly the same as four years ago.

The economy was the No. 1 concern on the minds of Democratic voters in Texas, Rhode Island and especially in Ohio. But in Vermont, almost as many voters said the war in Iraq was their top concern.

More than three-quarters of Ohio Democrats said international trade had cost their state more jobs than it had created.

Roughly six in 10 of the Democrats who were questioned outside the polls Tuesday said that so-called superdelegates, who are party officials, should vote at the national convention based on the results of primaries and caucuses. That was unwelcome news for Clinton, who trails Obama among delegates picked in the states but holds a lead among superdelegates.

Obama had campaigned hoping to land a knockout blow. As of March 1, his campaign had spent about $9 million on television advertising in Texas and about $4.5 million in Ohio; Clinton had spent about $5 million in Texas and about $2.3 million in Ohio, according to TNS Media Intelligence/CMAG, an ad tracking firm.

Clinton showed no sign of surrender as she campaigned on Tuesday. "You don't get to the White House as a Democrat without winning Ohio," she said in Houston.

"My husband didn't get the nomination wrapped up until June (in 1992). That has been the tradition," she added, without mentioning that this year most primaries were held much earlier than in 1992. "This is a very close race."

For his part, Obama was already advertising in Mississippi, which holds its primary next week, and planned trips there and to Wyoming, which has weekend caucuses.

Pennsylvania, the biggest single prize left, holds its primary on April 22.

"All those states coming up are going to make a difference," he said. "What we want to do is make sure we're competing in every single state."

It takes 2,025 delegates to win the Democratic nomination, and slightly more than 600 remained to be picked in the 10 states that vote after Tuesday.

The Democratic marathon was in contrast to a Republican race that was fierce while it lasted but had long since been settled.

McCain's campaign nearly imploded last summer. But he regrouped, reassuming the underdog role that he relishes, and methodically dispatched one rival after another in a string of primaries in January and early February.