Riding the crest of 11 consecutive wins, Obama was hoping to deliver a knockout blow to Clinton in the Tuesday primaries and caucuses. Even Bill Clinton had called Texas and Ohio as “must wins” for his wife.

The traditional support base of Hispanics and women were said to have given Clinton an edge in the latest round. While Obama held on to the African-American community as also a large percentage of the youth, he failed to breach Clinton’s votebank.

As the counting of votes continued till Wednesday afternoon, there was no clear picture on the exact equation of delegates. According to the Associated Press count, Hillary who had been trailing Obama by 100 delegates until Tuesday had reduced the margin after her victories in Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island. As per the count, Hillary now has 1,391 delegates as against Obama’s 1,477.

As they now gear for another major battle in Pennsylvania in April and many others in the run up to the party convention in August, it looks unlikely that either of them will reach the magic figure of 2,025 delegates to win the nomination. Some 800 superdelegates are set to play a decisive role in choosing the Democratic nominee.

Exit polls in Texas and Ohio suggested that one in five voters had made up his or her mind in the last three days of the campaign — a period marked by a controversy surrounding Obama’s ties with businessman Tony Rezko whose corruption trial began this week and another controversy about a key economic advisor of Obama telling Canadian officials in Chicago that the Senator’s stance on renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was mere “political positioning” and that Obama was not a protectionist.

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