US: The race for the Democratic Party nomination could be declared as good as over tomorrow evening if front-runner Mr John Kerry gets the overwhelming endorsement he expects in Wisconsin's primary election.
The Massachusetts senator confirmed his nationwide appeal at the weekend with big wins in Washington DC and Nevada, giving him 12 out of 14 victories since the Iowa caucus on January 19th.
The biggest threat tomorrow would be a "sympathy" vote for remaining serious rivals Senator John Edwards or Mr Howard Dean by Wisconsin voters who assume that Mr Kerry will win in any event. The Democratic front-runner has apparently been unscathed by reports of an affair with a 24-year-old woman from Pennsylvania which caused near panic in his campaign when they appeared on the Drudge Report on Wednesday. Though widely reported by media around the world, in the absence of any direct allegation from another party the mainstream US media have done little other than mention the Drudge Report Internet site and record the senator's denial.
In Nevada on Saturday Mr Kerry easily beat Mr Dean by 63 to 17 per cent and in Washington DC he saw off the challenge of the Rev Al Sharpton, the only Afro-American candidate by 47 to 20 per cent with Mr Dean at 17 per cent.
"These results show that our campaign is uniting Americans from different parts of our country and walks of life in a common purpose," Mr Kerry said, thanking the Democratic voters for their "lovely Valentine". The four-term senator promised to focus now on taking the fight to President Bush.
"When the Republican smear machine trots out the same old attacks in this election, this is one Democrat who will fight back," he said. "I've fought for my country my entire life, and I'm not about to back down now."
Mr Dean, a harsh critic of Mr Kerry as a Washington insider, is said to be preparing to wind up his campaign if Wisconsin Democrats plump heavily for Mr Kerry.
Mr Steve Grossman, national chairman of the Dean campaign, said Mr Dean's grass-roots network could become a movement that helps expand the party and elect the Democratic nominee - "and, obviously, that looks likely to be John Kerry". Senator Edwards continued to insist he was committed to continuing the race. The North Carolina Senator raised $500,000 in Los Angeles at the weekend and has enough money to stay on but the pressure for Democrats to coalesce around the front-runner is growing.
Mr Kerry now has 577 of the 2,161 delegates he needs for nomination at the Democratic Party convention, compared to 188 for Mr Dean and 166 for Mr Edwards.
Mr Kerry sent out an e-mail with video attachment to 300,000 supporters at the weekend claiming that President George Bush is cosy with polluters, pharmaceutical companies, big banks and investment firms.
This was in response to a Bush campaign video naming him as the senator who had taken most special interest money.
Mr Terry Holt, a spokesman for the Bush re-election committee, said the ad was "not so much about special interests as it is about the sheer hypocrisy of the Kerry message".