Obama Pushes to Claim Victory After Final Primaries

The Democratic primaries in South Dakota and Montana on Tuesday bring to an end a process that began precisely five months ago in Iowa. Expect the night to be late, potentially chaotic and not necessarily conclusive.

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Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton working the crowd on Monday at a restaurant in Rapid City, S.D. She plans to deliver a speech on Tuesday in New York. More Photos »
Senator Barack Obama, the Illinois Democrat, is using this last day to try to close down his nominating battle with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. He is looking to win in both states and to pick up the 25 or so superdelegates he needs so that, combined with the delegates he will gain in Montana and South Dakota, he can claim to have the 2,118 delegates needed to be the Democratic nominee. (Or more precisely, to step back and let the media proclaim him the winner; watch for the race of political and newspaper Web sites to be first to send out the “Obama Nominated” news bulletin).

Mr. Obama’s effort with the superdelegates began early Tuesday — at 6:58 a.m. Eastern time, Mr. Obama’s campaign announced that Joyce Lalonde, a Democratic superdelegate from Michigan, had joined the Obama campaign. If all goes as planned, it will continue through the day with a steady stream of endorsements. The moment the polls close in South Dakota, marking the official end of the nominating season — at 10 p.m. Eastern — a delegation of at least eight members of Congress who had been holding out until after the primaries will announce their support of Mr. Obama, according to Mr. Obama’s aides.

Mr. Obama would, if all goes according to plan, take the microphone as his party’s presumptive Democratic nominee, and begin — without distraction — his general election campaign against Senator John McCain of Arizona Wednesday morning.

What could go wrong?

Well, a few things. For one, although Mr. Obama seems in a clear position to win in Montana, the situation is not as clear in South Dakota, a state where there is no real history of Democratic primaries and where polling — at least as suggested by the divergent polls coming out of there — appears dicey. Mrs. Clinton and Bill Clinton have campaigned heavily in that state in the final hours, reflecting the sense in the Clinton campaign — and at least some worry in the Obama campaign — of the uncertainty of the outcome there.

A loss by Mr. Obama in South Dakota would probably not derail his hopes for the nomination; it does appear that the train has left the station, and there are not enough delegates at stake there to put Mrs. Clinton back in the delegate hunt. Still, it would mean that Mr. Obama would be ending the contest on a sour note, and one that would serve to reinforce many of the concerns Democrats have voiced about him as he has staggered through the second half of the primary season — in particular, that he is having trouble competing with Mrs. Clinton among white blue-collar workers.

The fact that voting results won’t start coming in until late in the evening could also complicate things for Mr. Obama. He would no doubt prefer to make his speech after the two states have been called, but if South Dakota is close, that could prove complicated.

The other factor that might distract from Mr. Obama’s attempt to move on Tuesday night is Mrs. Clinton. There have been some media reports over the past 24 hours suggesting that she may suspend her campaign with her speech in New York Tuesday, which would permit Mr. Obama to pivot cleanly to the general election. Her associates say, though, that this outcome is highly unlikely, and suggest looking for something more like a farewell address for now, an ambivalent coda to the evening. If she does suspend her campaign — and that does seem a likely outcome — it will be sometime over the next few days.

And finally, consider this: If Mrs. Clinton pulls out a victory in South Dakota, it could very well give her the impetus — and the ammunition — to make the case to superdelegates that Mr. Obama is an anemic general-election candidate and that the party should turn to her. That result could make her delay an exit even longer