CASPER (Wyoming), March 9: Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama trounced rival Hillary Clinton in Wyoming caucuses on Saturday as their tight race left them battling for every nominating delegate.

The Illinois senator defeated the former first lady by a wide margin, 61 per cent to 38 per cent, or 5,378 votes to 3,311, with 100 per cent of the vote counted. Sixty-four votes for others went mostly to ex-senator John Edwards.

The outcome meant Obama would win the lion’s share of the mere 12 delegates at stake, a tiny number compared to the 2,025 needed to secure the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination at its August convention.

But the victory represented some good news for Obama after a difficult week in which he lost nominating contests in delegate-rich Ohio and Texas and found himself on the defensive in the face of attacks from the Clinton campaign.

With no candidate yet able to lock in victory after eight long weeks of primaries, every vote and every delegate still counts in the battle to be the party’s nominee in the November presidential election against Republican John McCain.

And with only two contests before the end of April, every win carries weight in the battle for momentum with the candidates already eyeing Mississippi, which holds its primaries on Tuesday.

In 23 caucuses around Wyoming, Democrats only about 25 per cent of the staunchly Republican state’s electorate were choosing between Clinton, a New York senator, or Obama.

Officials reported heavy turnout in a state known for its Republican sympathies.

“I didn’t know there was this many Democrats in the whole state,” party official Dick Sadler said.

The caucus in Casper, a city of 50,000, started about two hours late because of the overwhelming crowds, as election officials were greeted by a line snaking around the building.

“It is very busy for Casper, Wyoming,” said Dolly Peake, a Clinton supporter, as more than 2,000 waited to vote, with the caucuses due to end at 6pm (0100 GMT Sunday).

A longtime supporter of Clinton and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, Peake said: “To hell with Obama I want Hillary!”

But Cheryl Flores, an Obama supporter, said she was backing the Illinois senator “because his campaign was more organised, he didn’t have as many negative attacks and he wants to get the troops out of Iraq as soon as possible”. She said it was exciting that Wyoming, often ignored by White House hopefuls as too small to be bothered with, was getting its turn in the spotlight this year.

A national Newsweek poll released Friday showed the two senators in a virtual tie in their epic battle, with Obama on 45 per cent support to Clinton’s 44 per cent.

The two were also virtually equal in voters’ eyes on the issue many see most important: the sagging US economy.

After Wyoming, Obama and Clinton will face voters in the bigger, southern state of Mississippi, where 33 delegates are at stake. And the battle will then move to Pennsylvania on April 22.

Obama is favoured in both Wyoming and Mississippi, but with his current delegate count at 1,581 to Clinton’s 1,460, according to the independent website RealClearPolitics, neither contest will settle the fight.On Friday, Obama led off with a stump speech before more than 1,300 people here, promising to end the war in Iraq by 2009 while continuing military operations in Afghanistan.—AFP