United States presidential hopeful and Democratic front runner Barack Obama is expected to further shore up his position by capturing a majority of the pledged delegates after primaries in Oregon and Kentucky on Tuesday. However, rival Hillary Clinton has refused to quit the White house race.
Opinion polls show Obama leading in Oregon and Clinton way ahead in Kentucky. As many as 103 pledged delegates are up for grabs in the two states.
Five more super delegates put their support behind Obama on Monday, even as Clinton warned him against declaring victory, asserting that she is not quitting the race.
Sources close to Obama campaign also said that he is in no hurry to declare victory even if he reaches an unassailable milestone and will allow the race to continue until the last three primaries scheduled for June 3.
But the party bosses are to meet towards the end of May to decide on the fate of delegates from Florida and Michigan, who have been debarred from voting in the party convention to nominate the presidential candidate, because they held primaries earlier in violation of party rules.
Clinton is asserting that the party should take into consideration that she would win the popular vote if the two states were counted.
The Obama campaign has already started looking beyond the party race and has repeatedly clashed with presumptive Republican candidate John McCain during the last few days.
Oregon, where Obama is ahead of his rival Hillary Clinton, has 65 delegates, including 13 super delegates. Of the super delegates, Obama has so far picked up 3 and Clinton two. A recent poll had found Obama leading Clinton by 51 to 34 percentage points
Obama currently has 1,612 pledged and 297 super delegates which gives him a total count of 1909 and thus he needs 117 more for majority. Clinton at present has 1443 pledged delegates and 275 super delegates, giving her a total of 1718.
That would mean she requires 208 delegates.
But the numbers could change once the party decides how to seat delegates from Florida and Michigan, who currently are disqualified.
Hillary Clinton asked Obama not to declare victory and start celebrating so fast, but analysts said they could not see how she could win, considering the mathematics of the delegates.
The results from the primaries are not expected until early Wednesday.
Obama, sure of victory, began attacking McCain, who too started paying back in kind, apparently considering him to be the ultimate Democratic nominee.
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