Hillary Clinton wrote a new chapter in her personal saga of catastrophe and redemption in an Ohio ballroom tonight, claiming a victory in the name of all of those who have ever tasted defeat.
As brightly coloured strips of confetti swirled in the updraft, it was a humbler version of Clinton who emerged to greet her supporters at a former Masonic temple in Columbus.
Framed by hundreds of arms stretched overhead with cellphones and cameras, Clinton appeared on stage alone except for her daughter Chelsea - and she immediately tried to tie her victory to all those who had recovered from disappointment.
"For anyone in Ohio or America who's ever been counted out but refused to be knocked out, for everyone who has stumbled but stood right back up, for everyone who worked hard and never gives up, this one is for you," Clinton told the crowd and the floor shook underfoot as they stomped their approval.
"This nation is coming back and so is this campaign," she said.
Hillary Clinton threw the Democratic race wide open today when she bounced back to win the two mega-states of Texas and Ohio and end Barack Obama's long string of victories.
Her wins raise the prospect of an extended contest for the Democratic nomination that could go all the way to the party convention in Denver in August.
Obama had won the previous 11 contests.
She also took the small New England state, Rhode Island, giving her three out of the four contested yesterday. Obama got the consolation prize of another small New England state, Vermont.
Her tactics over the last week, pressing Obama hard on national security, the economy and his relations with Anton 'Tony' Rezko, who is on trial for alleged corruption, paid off.
Her team also exploited questions about Obama's integrity raised by a leaked memo suggesting he was playing a double-game over the North American Trade Agreement, blamed by many in Ohio for job losses.
Speaking in Columbus, Ohio, Clinton dedicated her victories to everyone across America who has been counted out but refused to give up.
Referring to Ohio's place in US election history as the key swing state, she said:
"You know what they say: 'As Ohio goes, so goes the nation'. Well, this nation's coming back and so is this campaign," she said. "We're going on, we're going strong and we're going all the way."
Clinton had been close to being written off and faced calls from Obama's supporters to quit the race, but she staged a comeback today more impressive than her surprise win in New Hampshire in January.
She was flying back to Washington DC early today to trumpet her victories on six morning television shows.
How the candidates stand after the March 4 contests
She won Ohio comfortably but had a close-fought contest with Obama for Texas. With 77% of the votes counted in Texas, Clinton had 51% to Obama's 47%. The US television networks and the Associated Press called it for Clinton.
In his speech in San Antonio, Texas, Obama congratulated Clinton but reminded her that, in spite of her victories, he retained almost the same overall lead in the number of delegates who will vote for the nominee at the party convention. "We are on our way to winning this nomination," he said.
Before yesterday's primaries, Obama had 1,386 delegates (including the 'super-delegates', senior Democrats such as members of Congress who automatically have a vote) and Clinton 1,276.
There were 370 delegates at stake in the four primaries, 193 of them in Texas and 141 in Ohio.
Clinton picked up at least five delegates in Rhode Island. Obama won at least eight delegates in Vermont.
Although she won Ohio and Texas, delegates are distributed on a proportional basis, meaning that Obama will take a signficant number of them too.
The next contest is Wyoming, which holds its caucuses on Saturday, followed by Mississippi, which has its primary on Tuesday.
Two senior members of Clinton's team, Howard Wolfson and Phil Singer, yesterday signalled they expected Obama to win both given the demographics.
But they expressed confidence that she will take the next big prize, Pennsylvania, on April 22, the last of the mega-states in the race.
The Ohio and Texas victories will allow Clinton to claim that she wins the big states - New York, California and New Jersey - while Obama has won mostly small ones.
In her speech, Clinton referred to one of the most successful ploys she adopted in her aggressive pursuit of Obama over the last week that will go down in election history as a turning point in the campaign, the phone call ad.
The ad showed sleeping children and asked voters who they would want to answer the phone at the White House at 3am to deal with a crisis, the implication being that Obama lacked the experience.
In Ohio, with 81% of the vote counted, Clinton had 56% to Obama's 42%.
With 98% of the votes counted in Rhode Island, Clinton had 58% to Obama's 40%. With 85% of the vote counted in Vermont, Clinton had 38% to Obama's 60%.
Texas has a cumbersome and complex voting system. Two-thirds of the delegates in the state are allocated on the basis of the vote in the primary. But the remaining third are distributed on the basis of caucuses held immediately after the primary.
Obama, in previous contests, has done better than Clinton in caucuses because of better grassroots organisation. With 5% of the caucuses counted, Obama was beating Clinton by 56% to 44%.
In the other contest, John McCain formally wrapped up the Republican race with a clean sweep of Ohio, Texas, Vermont and Rhode Island that gave him 1,199 delegates and pushed him over the magic line, the 1,191 delegates needed to secure the nomination.
Last night, before all the votes were counted, his main rival, Mike Huckabee, phoned McCain to inform him he was pulling out of the contest. President George Bush is expected to endorse McCain today at the White House.
With Clinton and Obama continuing to battle it out for the Democratic nomination, McCain has a potential advantage in that he is now free to prepare for the November general election.
With 74% of the votes counted in the Republican contest in Texas, where Huckabee had hoped he could secure a victory as he had in other southern states, McCain took 52% to the Baptist pastor's 37%.
In Ohio, with 80% of the votes counted, he took 59% to Huckabee's 31%. In Rhode Island, with 97% of the vote counted, he took 65% to Huckabee's 22%. In Vermont, with 85% of the vote counted, he had 72% to Huckabee's 14%.
The magic number for securing the Democratic nomination is 2,025 delegates at the party conference in Denver in August. There are ten contests remaining, with more than 600 at stake.
Exit polls showed that concern about the economy was the biggest issue for most voters, 61% in recession-hit Ohio and 48% in Texas.
Exit polls in Texas showed Clinton won the overwhelming support of Latino voters, who make up about a third of Democratic voters in the state. She won 64% of them.
Exit polls in Ohio showed Clinton holding on to her core support: women, low-income voters and union households.
