Party officials reported extremely high turnout at caucus sites across the state. In Laramie County, more than 1,500 came to cast votes at the caucus site, quickly filling the auditorium in downtown Cheyenne. Hundreds waited outside for hours until they could enter and vote.

Wyoming Democrats, usually a lonely bunch in an overwhelmingly Republican state, basked in their moment in the spotlight. “Wyoming, this is our 15 minutes,” Kathy Karpan, a former Wyoming secretary of state who supported Clinton, said on Saturday morning.

Obama beat Clinton by 23 points. He appeared to have to won seven new delegates, while she will probably gain five. While both Clinton and Obama pushed hard to win the state, the Obama campaign’s early organising here appeared to have paid off.

The campaign set up shop two weeks before Clinton’s did, opening five offices in the state to two for Clinton. And Obama went on the air with television and radio commercials this week. Clinton had two radio advertisements running.

David Plouffe, Obama’s campaign manager, said on Saturday afternoon that the Wyoming victory was “evidence that Senator Obama is going to be able to put more states in play. “This is a big win for us,” Plouffe said. “You saw very furious campaigning by the Clinton campaign here.” Coupled with victories in Colorado, Nebraska and Washington state, he said, the result in Wyoming “speaks to Senator Obama’s strength in the West.”

Maggie Williams, Clinton’s campaign manager, issued a statement saying the campaign was “thrilled with this near split in delegates.” Clinton’s decision to focus on Wyoming was a tactical departure for a campaign that had played down the importance of such caucus states, essentially ceding many of them to Obama, while deriding the caucus process as undemocratic.

But with Obama collecting 11 victories in these contests, and with Clinton determined to cut into his stubborn lead in delegates, the Clinton campaign deployed Chelsea Clinton and Bill Clinton on Thursday, with a final campaign sprint by Clinton on Friday.

Wyoming, with its half-million residents, is the least populated state. It will award 12 delegates based on the results of the caucuses, with 6 others who could go to the convention uncommitted.

Instead of the traditional caucus format, most of Wyoming’s 23 counties held caucuses conducted by paper ballots, where participants simply placed a check mark next to the name of their chosen presidential candidate and put the slip into a ballot box.

The campaign now moves to Mississippi, which holds its primary Tuesday. In Mississippi on Saturday, Bill Clinton, campaigning in Pass Christian, repeated the suggestion that Hillary was “very open” to taking Obama as a running mate if she won the nomination, ABC News reported. A Clinton-Obama ticket, he said, would be “an almost unstoppable force.”