Clinton, McCain roll to victory in NY

Hillary Rodham Clinton beat back a strong challenge from Barack Obama on Tuesday to win her adopted state, and John McCain defeated Mitt Romney to claim all of New York's Republican delegates.

Although Clinton won New York, Sen. Obama seemed poised to get a big chunk of New York's 232 Democratic delegates.

Sen. Clinton was tested by Obama in heavily black neighborhoods in New York City, liberal upstate areas and on college campuses.

In the GOP primary, Sen. McCain had the backing of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani in his quest for the state's 101 Republican delegates.

Giuliani ended his campaign last week after a poor showing in Florida's primary, the latest of several defeats after leading the GOP field months ago.

A WNBC/Marist Poll last week found most New Yorkers felt Clinton was best able to handle the economy, the Iraq war and health care, but Obama embodied the best chance for undefined "change."

With 99 percent of precincts reporting, Clinton had 57 percent of the vote to Obama's 40 percent. McCain had 51 percent, compared with 28 percent for Romney, a former Massachusetts governor.

At an elementary school Tuesday, Clinton with her husband and daughter signed autographs on sample ballots for people at the polling place.

"If voters ask themselves who they think would be the best president, and if Democrats ask who they think would be the best candidate to win, I feel really good about the answers to those questions," she said.

Of New York's 232 Democratic delegates, 151 will be split based on the vote in each of the state's 29 congressional districts, and the remaining 81 will be divided based on the statewide popular vote. A Democratic candidate must get 15 percent of the vote in a congressional district to earn delegates.

The primary occurred on the same day that the New York Giants celebrated their Super Bowl victory with a ticker-tape parade in lower Manhattan that attracted hundreds of thousands of fans. Three voting precincts were near the parade route, but there appeared to be no major disruptions.