COLUMBIA, South Carolina, 5 February 2004 — Sen. John Kerry was a huge step closer yesterday to winning the Democratic presidential nomination after sweeping five of seven state contests and leaving rivals John Edwards and Wesley Clark clinging to long-shot hopes.
Kerry, 60, demonstrated broad national appeal in piling up convincing victories Tuesday, from Delaware in the east to Arizona in the southwest, and cementing his grip on the race to oppose President George W. Bush in November.
Edwards, a senator from North Carolina, stayed alive with a win in his native South Carolina, while Clark, the former NATO commander, basked in his first electoral triumph in Midwestern state of Oklahoma.
Commentators stressed that both had yet to show winning strength outside their home regions, and they faced an uphill battle with not much time left to wrest the nomination from the surging Kerry.
But Edwards, 50, said his win in the country’s first southern primary and second-place finishes in Oklahoma and the Midwestern state of Missouri made him a clear alternative to Kerry.
“It looks more and more like a two-person race,” he told Fox News.
Kerry, coming off wins in Iowa and New Hampshire, was jubilant over his string of double-digit successes in Tuesday’s contests, with a total of 269 nominating delegates at stake.
The victories in Delaware, Arizona, Missouri, New Mexico in the Southwest and North Dakota in the north proved his vote-drawing power “from one coast to the other, from north to south,” the veteran legislator said.
Kerry was already focusing on the next battles Saturday in the Midwestern powerhouse state of Michigan, where polls showed him with a commanding lead, and Washington in the Northwest.
Edwards and Clark looked toward next Tuesday’s votes in the southern states of Virginia and Tennessee. They hoped to keep the outcome open until the March 2 “Super Tuesday,” when 10 states with more than half the 2,162 delegates needed for the nomination will be on offer. The Democratic field narrowed after the latest primaries and caucuses, with Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman dropping out and fallen front-runner Howard Dean looking moribund despite his pledge to fight on. Exit polls Tuesday suggested Democrats were hungry for a candidate who can beat Bush.
