A split verdict on the cards

Washington: Hillary Rodham Clinton, locked in an eyeball-to-eyeball duel with Barack Obama, looked to re-establish herself as the clear Democratic front-runner, while Republican John McCain hoped to bury rival Mitt Romney's presidential bid as voting began across the country on Super Tuesday, the biggest primary day in US history.

The vote is almost a national primary: each party was holding contests in more than 20 states, including some of the most populous, such as California and New York. At stake are about half the delegates who will choose a nominee at party conventions in August and September.

Clinton, the New York senator and wife of former President Bill Clinton, was long seen as the inevitable Democratic candidate with double-digit leads in the polls just weeks ago. Her supporters had expected that she would lock up the nomination with big wins on Super Tuesday.

But Obama, a first-term Illinois senator campaigning on a theme of hope and change, has narrowed her lead to little or nothing in the latest national and individual state polls.

Neither candidate was expected to emerge from Super Tuesday as the presumptive nominee. Clinton and Obama each hoped to win the majority of delegates at stake and claim front-runner status heading into the next rounds of state primaries and caucuses.

"We're all kind of guessing about what it's all going to mean because it's never happened before," Clinton said. "There's a lot we're going to find out about how all this works."

One thing is certain, Obama said: "No matter what happens I think we'll see a split decision." With so many states casting votes, Democrats were spending unprecedented amounts of money on television advertising.

Clinton and Obama each poured more than $1 million (Dh3.67 million) a day into TV ads in the last week alone. Clinton, flanked by her husband and daughter, went to vote in New York's Westchester County. "I feel really good," she said. The electoral territory was vast and so were the stakes.

Romney, his Republican bid on the line, logged more than 8,000km in a 37-hour coast-to-coast dash as he tried to block McCain from wrapping up the nomination.

McCain led by double digits in national polls, but some surveys showed Romney gaining ground in delegate-rich California.

Romney sought until the end to exploit conservatives' mistrust of McCain, a veteran Arizona senator who opposed President George W. Bush's tax cuts when they were introduced, advocated a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, favours mandates to slow global warming and led campaign finance reforms that activists say trampled on their free speech rights.

McCain struck back on Monday with a television ad that showed Romney in a 1994 Senate campaign debate against Sen Edward M. Kennedy, saying he was "an independent during the time of Reagan-Bush. I'm not trying to return to Reagan-Bush".

Former Arkansas Gov Mike Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister, focused on the South, where he enjoys support from Christian conservatives.

McCain could finish first in several Southern and border states - Alabama, Georgia, Oklahoma and Missouri - with Huckabee and Romney splitting the conservative vote.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's decision to quit the race and endorse McCain after Florida's primary has given the Arizona senator a boost in Northeastern states where there are many moderate Republicans.