WASHINGTON -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton cut into Sen. Barack Obama's delegate lead in early returns from Pennsylvania's Democratic primary.
Clinton won at least 28 delegates to the party's national convention, with 130 still to be awarded, according to an analysis of election returns by The Associated Press.
In the overall race for the nomination, Obama led with 1,648.5 delegates, including separately chosen party and elected officials known as superdelegates. Clinton had 1,537.5 delegates, according to the AP tally.
It will take 2,025 delegates to secure the Democratic nomination.
On the Republican side, Sen. John McCain clinched the party nomination in March.
The AP tracks the delegate races by calculating the number of national convention delegates won by candidates in each presidential primary or caucus, based on state and national party rules, and by interviewing unpledged delegates to obtain their preferences.
Most primaries and some caucuses are binding, meaning delegates won by the candidates are pledged to support that candidate at the national conventions this summer.
Political parties in some states, however, use multistep procedures to award national delegates. Typically, such states use local caucuses to elect delegates to state or congressional district conventions, where national delegates are selected. In these states, the AP uses the results from local caucuses to calculate the number of national delegates each candidate will win, if the candidate's level of support at the caucus doesn't change.
© 2008 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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