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.”