As Four States Vote, Clinton Talks About a Long Battle

As voters in Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont and Texas headed to the polls potentially to decide the Democratic nomination for the presidency, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday urged voters to settle in for a nomination fight that could roll on for months to come.

“You know this is a long process,” Mrs. Clinton told reporters Tuesday morning outside a polling place in Houston.

It was an entirely different message from the one delivered by former President Bill Clinton just a few weeks ago, when he told Ohio and Texas voters that his wife would not succeed without victories in those delegate-rich states.

Turnout appeared to be heavy. In Cleveland, heavy rains did not deter voters, and parts of Texas reported particularly strong turnout even though people had been voting there since Feb. 19.

"Best I can tell it’s a tsunami of voters,” said Gerry Birnberg, chairman of the Harris County Democratic Party, which encompasses Houston and its environs. At some polling sites there, as many as 100 voters lined up before the polls opened at 7 a.m., Mr. Birnberg said. A record 180,000 voters cast Democratic ballots in early voting in Harris County and some 300,000 more were expected today, far surpassing the 75,000 in the 2004 presidential election.

While the Mrs. Clinton projected determination to soldier on, the Obama campaign issued reminders of Mr. Clinton’s earlier statements saying that Mrs. Clinton needed to win Texas and Ohio.

“Three weeks ago, when they led polls in Texas and Ohio by 20 points, the Clinton campaign set their own test for today’s primaries,” Bill Burton, a spokesman, said in an e-mail statement. He set expectations for his candidate’s performance fairly low, saying Mr. Obama will maintain his delegate lead. But behind the scenes, leading supporters of Senator Barack Obama were working to persuade Democrats, particularly the superdelegates who could decide the nomination, to step forward and coalesce behind him as soon as Wednesday.

A few months ago, today’s voting was not expected to count much, thanks to a front-loaded calendar that was supposed to settle the nominations of both parties early. Instead, with the path to the Democratic nomination still unclear, voters in Texas flooded the polls.

But today Mrs. Clinton reached back much further in time, citing her husband’s nomination victory in June of 1992 as well as the long-lost days when parties chose candidates at summertime conventions. Her campaign “is just hitting its stride,” Mrs. Clinton said, even though she has been running for well over a year, in a race that has gone on longer than anyone expected.

“We’re just beginning to draw those contrasts and those differences and that’s when voters start to zero in,” she said, expressing optimism despite 11 straight losses to Mr. Obama in recent contests.

On a conference call with reporters, representatives from her campaign played up upcoming contests particularly Pennsylvania’s April 22 primary, where Mrs. Clinton is the early favorite.

At Cantebury Elementary School in Cleveland, Ohio, Nicole Pecora, 32, a graduate student at Case Western University, said she procrastinated until the very last minute. “I was filling out circles for random judges until I ran out of circles,” she said. “I’ve never had so much trouble making up my mind.”

In the end Mr. Obama got her vote, mostly because of his stance against the conflict in Iraq. “Hillary voted for the war, and I know she says she regrets it, but I can’t forgive her for that,” said Ms. Pecora, an immunologist who specializes in tuberculosis.

She added that the Obama presence in Cleveland has overshadowed that of Mrs. Clinton, who has fewer ads on television and fewer signs on front lawns. “Everywhere you look, it’s Obama, Obama, Obama,” she said.

Rasheda Thomas she said had finally made up her mind on the drive over to the same polling place. “I’ve been torn in the middle,” she said. “But I always thought if Hillary ever ran, I would vote for her. It took a Clinton to clean up after the first Bush and it will take a Clinton to clean up after the second Bush.” Asked if she had any qualms about not supporting Mr. Obama, Ms. Thomas, who is black, said, “I’m a woman first.”

Meanwhile, as Senator John McCain campaigned Tuesday morning at Mi Tierra Café, a bakery in San Antonio known for its Mexican panes dulces, he said that he hoped to win enough delegates to clinch the Republican nomination and force Mike Huckabee from the race. And he took a swipe at the Democratic candidates, implying that they were harsher in their criticism of Nafta while they campaigned in Ohio, with its struggling industrial sector, than in Texas, which has benefited from trade with Mexico.

“I didn’t go to Ohio and say anything that I’m not saying here in the state of Texas,” Mr. McCain said. “I support Nafta, I support free trade. I support in Ohio, I support it in Texas, I support it all over the country.”

Reporting was contributed by Ralph Blumenthal, John Broder in Houston, Michael Cooper in San Antonio, Andrew Jacobs in Cleveland, Jeff Zeleny in Austin.