(CBS/AP) Sen. Hillary Clinton coasted to easy victory in the Kentucky primary on Tuesday. With almost all precincts reporting in Kentucky, Clinton leads Sen. Barack Obama 65 percent to 30 percent.
"This is one of the closest races for a party's nomination in modern history," Clinton told supporters celebrating her victory. "We're winning the popular vote, and I'm more determined than ever to see that every vote is cast and every ballot is counted."
Even so, she commended Obama and said whatever their differences, "we do see eye to eye when it comes to uniting our party and electing a Democratic president this fall."
She also said Michigan and Florida Democrats deserve to have their votes counted, a reference to the lingering controversy surrounding primaries in both states held in defiance of Democratic National Committee rules.
Clinton and Obama also compete in Oregon on Tuesday, the latest contests in a historic Democratic presidential race moving inexorably his way. Oregon has a vote-by-mail system and ballots are due at 11 p.m. ET.
According to latest CBS News count, Obama now has a total 1,924 delegates, which leaves him just over 100 away from the 2,026 needed to capture the nomination. The former first lady has 1,747. (See the full state-by-state tally)
Obama is also closing in on taking a majority of pledged delegates, not including Democratic superdelegates. He has 1,619 pledged delegates to Clinton's 1,471. He needs eight more to get a majority of those to be allocated. However, that count does not include Michigan and Florida, which the Clinton campaign argues should be included.
According to CBS News early exit polling, in Kentucky, eight in 10 Clinton voters said they would be dissatisfied if Obama was the Democratic nominee. Obama voters were about evenly split on whether they would be satisfied if Clinton got the nomination. (Read more from the exit polls.)
In Kentucky, just 33 percent of Clinton voters said they would back Obama in the general election if he is the Democratic nominee - 41 percent said they will vote for McCain, and another 23 percent say they won’t vote.
Oregon voters felt differently on that question, according to the exit poll. A majority of Clinton and Obama voters in the state would be satisfied if their opponent got the nomination. And 68 percent of Clinton voters say they will back Obama in the general election if he is the nominee and 80 percent of Obama voters say they will back Clinton in the general election.
Democratic voters in both states said the economy was the most important issue, with 65 percent of voters in Kentucky saying that. Voters differed, however, on whether to suspend the gas tax was a good idea. In Kentucky, 57 percent thought it would be good idea and 39 percent said it would not be. In Oregon, 63 percent said they thought it would be a bad idea and 26 percent said it would be a good idea.
Since the vote is by mail in Oregon, the exit poll was taken by telephone and completed on Sunday.
Regardless of the results of the night's two primaries, Obama decided to mark a victory of sorts. He arranged an evening appearance in Iowa, site of his critical Jan. 3 caucus triumph, to claim a majority of the delegates at stake in all 56 contests on the campaign calendar.
CBS News correspondent Dean Reynolds reports that Obama wants to further the impression that he is the big winner without painting Clinton as the big loser. He won't declare victory, but he does point out the significance of tonight's delegate harvest.
"What it means is we've won the majority of delegates that have been assigned by voters during the primaries and caucuses," Obama said in an interview with CBS News. "Hopefully we'll be able to secure the nomination in the coming weeks and then focus our attention on the real choice that the American people are going to have."
Clinton looked for a consolation for the strongest presidential campaign of any woman in history. She hoped to finish with more votes than her rival in all the contests combined, including Florida and Michigan, which were striped of their delegates by the national party for moving up their primary dates.
Campaigning with his wife in Kentucky, former President Clinton dismissed Obama's inevitable claim on pledged delegates.
"There won't be tonight, unless you decapitate Michigan and Florida, which violates our values and is dumb politics," Bill Clinton said.
Kentucky, where Clinton concentrated much of her efforts in recent days, had 51 convention delegates at stake.
Clinton and her husband spent more than an hour Tuesday morning working the room at a diner in Louisville. They signed autographs, cuddled a baby and shook hands with diners, some of whom told the former first lady they had already voted for her.
"I'm going to work hard for you," she replied to one woman who volunteered she'd voted for Clinton.
Oregon, where Obama invested his time and drew a crowd estimated by police at 75,000 over the weekend, had 52 delegates at stake. The state also had the distinction of staging the only contest without a designated polling day. Instead, under a vote-by-mail system, election officials tallied all ballots received by 11 p.m. on primary day.
Obama was favored in Oregon, where supporters delivered the largest crowd of his campaign on Sunday.
The only primaries remaining are Puerto Rico, on June 1, followed two days later by South Dakota and Montana.
Increasingly, Obama has been concentrating his campaign on John McCain, the Republican nominee-in-waiting, rather than on Clinton.
The former first lady has jettisoned the sharp attacks against Obama that characterized the race only a few weeks ago, although she bristled on Monday at his decision to focus on the fall campaign. "You can declare yourself anything, but if you don't have the votes, it doesn't matter," she said in a satellite interview with an Oregon television station.
Even so, there was no shortage of signs that the closest Democratic nominating campaign in a generation was reaching its final stages after drawing more than 33 million voters to the polls and shattering numerous turnout records along the way.
Former Sen. Tom Daschle, a key Obama adviser, said now is the time for Democrats to coalesce behind Obama in order to defeat Republican nominee-in-waiting John McCain.
"We want to begin the process of bringing this party together, and I think that over the last few weeks we've seen indications at virtually all levels in both campaigns that there's a desire to do that," Daschle told CBS News' "The Early Show" Tuesday morning. "That doesn't mean we're going to do it tomorrow or the next day, but clearly there is a desire to unify. We know that the differences between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton pale by comparison [to] the differences that we now see between Barack Obama and John McCain."
As recently as May 6, Obama trailed Clinton among superdelegates, officeholders and party leaders who will attend the national convention by virtue of their positions.
But in the days following his convincing victory in the North Carolina primary and his narrow defeat in Indiana, Obama has gained the support of dozens of superdelegates and taken the lead in that category. Clinton has gained far fewer over that period.
Obama also has picked up the endorsement of former Sen. John Edwards, who dropped out of the race in the early going; two labor unions, and NARAL Pro-Choice America. The abortion rights advocacy organization has supported Clinton throughout her political career.
Fundraisers for the two campaigns have held quiet discussions on working together in the fall campaign.
Additionally, Obama's top strategist, David Axelrod, disclosed he had contacted Clinton's former campaign manager about joining forces for the general election. Patti Solis Doyle confirmed what she called informal conversations about how she might help the Illinois senator if, as expected, he secures the presidential nomination.