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Sen. Barack Obama's campaign said Tuesday night, with some polls still open, that the senator had taken a lead over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the crucial delegate count. David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager, said the campaign won the delegate counts by big margins in some states, including Obama's home state of Illinois. At just after 10:30 p.m. EST, Plouffe said Obama was leading Clinton in the delegate count 606-534.Plouffe said Obama's strength in the caucus states and a win in the "home state comparison" were responsible for the numbers even though a number of other results were still filtering in. "We currently have won more delegates based on our projections," Plouffe said on a conference call with reporters. Plouffe cautioned that a number of states, including California were still far from reporting. The Clinton campaign, on an earlier conference call, said it was "encouraged" by its wins throughout the night, but it continued to caution -- as it has in recent days -- that the delegate battle will continue. That said, spokesman Howard Wolfson, chief strategist Mark Penn and field director Guy Cecil said they "expect to be ahead of Sen. Obama in overall delegates" come morning. "This is not going to be decided anytime in the near future as far as we can see," Wolfson said. The Obama campaign said it won a significant more number of delegates in the senator's home state than Clinton did in hers.
In Illinois, Plouffe said, Obama won the delegate race 110-43. Plouffe didn't specify what the breakdown was in New York, but he did say Clinton won there by a margin of 52 delegates.
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