Wisconsin is the next stop in US Presidential race

Washington: In the US elections Primaries, in Wisconsin, Washington, and Caucus in Hawai on Tuesday, the total number of votes up for grabs are 150, and opinion polls show that Hillary Clinton is slightly ahead of Barack Obama with 49 to 43 per cent.

Hillary will be hoping to end the unbroken string of successes Obama has notched up over the last month. She needs a win in Wisconsin to look more credible in the two big states of Texas and Ohio next month.

Barack Obama reached out to working-class voters in Wisconsin just days ahead of the Midwestern state's primary where Hillary Rodham Clinton hopes

to begin her comeback in the closely contested Democratic presidential race.

On the Republican side, John McCain moved closer to securing the party's nomination as he picked up a total of 50 national nominating delegates from Michigan and Louisiana, where state conventions divided up delegates to the party's national convention in September.

McCain won endorsement from former president George H W Bush.

Clinton and Obama campaigned in Wisconsin ahead of Tuesday's primary to gain an edge in their tight race. In a stop at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Obama dismissed Clinton's arguments that she is the better candidate because of her longer tenure in Washington.

"We don't need somebody to play the Washington game better -- we need to end the game plan," he told about 3,500 supporters.

Clinton made her first Wisconsin campaign stop yesterday afternoon at a restaurant in Kenosha.

The former first lady accused Obama of dropping the Democratic Party's longtime platform of ensuring universal health care coverage, saying that Obama's plan would leave millions of people uninsured because it doesn't require individual mandate for insurance.

"Let's not give up on the dream of universal health care," she said. "If we don't even have a plan to get there, as my opponent doesn't, then we've given up."

The Illinois senator has responded by saying his plan would drive down costs enough to make health care affordable. He says he opposes a mandate because it would financially punish those who do not have insurance.

(With inputs from AP)