Hillary Clinton has registered a thumping win over frontrunner Barack Obama in Puerto Rico's Democratic presidential primary, and raised a more assertive war cry of "popular vote" against her African-American rival for nomination.

The former first lady decisively won the Puerto Rico primary, which put 55 delegates up for grabs, by 68 per cent to 32 per cent of Obama, but was far behind the Illinois Senator in the delegate count.

With the latest results figured in, Obama was only 48 shy of rolling over 2,118 needed to win the party nomination for the ultimate November elections. Clinton had her number at 1915 including 1,624 pledged and 291 super delegates.

In her victory speech, Clinton desperately attempted to convey her point on "popular vote" to super delegates, who would hold the key to the final determination of Democratic nominee in the party's Denver convention in August.

"We are winning the popular vote," a defiant-looking Hillary said, addressing supporters in Puerto Rico.

She stressed that she was in a much stronger position than Obama to win several swing states which the party must carry in the November presidential elections to wrest the White House from Republicans.

She also emphasised that neither candidate was in a position to win 2,118 pledged delegates.

So far as popular vote is concerned, the two campaigns are calculating it in different ways. The difference is over how to count popular votes from disputed States of Florida [Images] and Michigan.

Puerto Rico, from where Clinton picked up 38 delegates and Obama 17, participates in the primaries and conventions to select the candidate but cannot vote in the presidential election as it is not a full-fledged State.

Nevertheless, the victory did give Clinton an arguing point that Hispanic voters strongly back her.

The overwhelming majority of voters in the territory are Hispanic but in other States too Clinton had shown that she has their strong backing.

Though Clinton surrogates continued to blast the party rules committee for its decision to grant only one half vote to delegates from Florida and Michigan to punish the States for holding primary earlier than scheduled, she herself did not touch on the subject in her speech.

The 60-year-old former first lady did not say whether she would drop out the race after Tuesday and carry her fight to the credential committee which meets in July and the convention floor in August.

But media reports quoted unidentified sources said that super delegates were urging her to drop out.

However, Clinton surrogates doing rounds of television networks said that the super delegates could always change their position and she had much better chance of winning the White House against presumptive Republican candidate John McCain than Obama.

Besides, even as the party bosses were all but saying Obama is the candidate, they stressed that he would need Clinton's support to win swing States and women and white workers' support in several States, especially the swing States which the party must win.

Analysts said that one reason party bosses were playing cautiously is they did not want to appear to be pushing her out of the race, thus annoying women voters who have shown preference for Clinton in recent polls.

Meanwhile, Obama telephoned Clinton to congratulate her on victory in Puerto Rico which analysts said was gesture to placate her and later seek her support.

Clinton had said she would campaign for Obama if he emerges as the Democratic candidate but it is not clear how far she would go.

Analysts were also discussing the possibility Obama offering vice presidentship to Clinton but were not very hopeful that she would accept it or even Obama will make suchan offer considering the possibility of her overshadowing him.

But addressing a campaign rally, he did praise Clinton, describing her to be an outstanding public servant.

"She going to be a great asset when we go into November (presidential election) to make sure we can defeat the Republicans," he said.
He also indicated that he would announce his victory after Tuesday.