Senator Hillary Clinton's win over Senator Barack Obama in Pennsylvania has breathed new life into her campaign and given it a much-needed financial boost. Her campaign says donors1 contributed more than $10 million to her bid for the Democratic nomination2 in the 24 hours after her victory. VOA Correspondent Cindy Saine reports from Washington.
Senator Clinton's campaign says the money came from 100,000 donors, including 80,000 new donors who had not contributed to her campaign before.
The big cash infusion3 comes just in time. The Clinton campaign disclosed April 1 that its debt of $10 million exceeded its cash on hand of $9 million. On the same day, Senator Obama's campaign announced that it had more than $40 million in cash in hand, with no debts. Analysts4 say Senator Clinton needs the money to be able to compete in the next two primaries in North Carolina and Indiana in two weeks. The two candidates have already moved on to Indiana.
Speaking to an outdoor crowd in Indianapolis, Clinton says she now has the momentum5, and presented herself as the new frontrunner.
"I'm very proud that as of today, I have received more votes by the people who have voted than anybody else," she said. "And I am proud of that because it's a very close race, but if you count as I count the 2.3 million people who voted in Michigan and Florida, then we are going to build on that."
Her calculation includes Michigan and Florida, two states that defied Democratic Party rules to hold their primaries early, so the Democratic National Committee says the results do not count and will not yield any delegates for the convention in late August.
Senator Obama still leads in the all-important number of pledged delegates to the convention by about 130 delegates, and has won more states than Senator Clinton.
Speaking to his supporters in New Albany, Indiana, Obama rejected Clinton's new method of measuring voter support.
"There have been a number of different formulations that the Clinton campaign has been trying to arrive at to suggest that somehow they're not behind," he said. "I'll leave that up to you guys. If you want to count them for some abstract measure, you're free to do so, but you know, the way that the popular vote is translated is into delegates, that's how these primaries and these caucuses6 work."
Both candidates are trying to appeal to the so-called "superdelegates", close to 800 party officials and elected representatives who are free to choose the candidate they support.
The Obama campaign says the Democratic race remains7 "fundamentally unchanged" after his expected loss in Pennsylvania. Obama is heavily favored to win in North Carolina, while opinion polls indicate a very close race in Indiana.
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