KEY POINTS:
'It took a while, but what's eight years among friends?' - McCain
COLUMBIA - Republican Senator John McCain won a heated presidential nominating battle in South Carolina, gaining strength in an unpredictable White House race.
McCain narrowly defeated rival Mike Huckabee in a fight focused on the
economy in South Carolina - a state where his presidential hopes were destroyed in a bitter 2000 battle that set George W. Bush on a path to the White House.
"It took us a while, but what's eight years among friends," McCain told cheering supporters in Charleston.
"My friends, we are well on our way tonight, and I feel very good."
Mitt Romney won a Republican race in Nevada that his rivals largely skipped in order to concentrate on South Carolina.
For the victors, the prize is a jolt of energy in a race where momentum has been short-lived. Republican contenders head to Florida for a January 29 primary.
McCain's win in South Carolina, following his New Hampshire victory, was fuelled by support from conservatives, with exit polls showing seven in 10 voters in the state primary describing themselves that way.
More than half of the voters were religious conservatives, but that was not enough to give the win to Huckabee, a Baptist preacher before he entered politics, whose Iowa win was fuelled by evangelical support.
The win was another step forward on the comeback trail for McCain, a former Vietnam prisoner of war whose presidential bid seemed finished last year when he was low on cash, shedding staff and sinking in the polls.
South Carolina Republicans have been kingmakers in party politics, with the Republican winner in the state going on to capture the party's nomination every year since 1980.
McCain led Huckabee 33 per cent to 30 per cent in South Carolina. Former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson was edging Romney for third place.
The results created big questions for Huckabee and Thompson, who needed a strong showing in the state to go on. Thompson gave no sign of his future plans during an address to supporters in Columbia, but Huckabee said he was headed to Florida and beyond.
"The path to the White House is not ending here tonight," Huckabee told supporters in Columbia.
"We've got a lot of miles ahead of us."
Romney's convincing win in Nevada followed his breakthrough victory in Michigan last week after two disappointing second-place finishes.
Romney stressed his ability as a former business executive to tackle economic problems.
Exit polls showed the economy was the top concern among Nevada's Republican voters, followed closely by immigration.
"In the last week, two of the battleground states have come out strongly for our campaign. They have heard our message that Washington is broken," Romney said in Jacksonville, Florida.
Worries about the economy have taken centre stage amid talk of a possible recession in the United States, with each of the candidates offering recovery plans.
Representative Duncan Hunter of California fell victim to poor showings in all the early contests and dropped out of the race for the Republican nomination.
- REUTERS
'I guess this is how the West was won' - Clinton
LAS VEGAS - Senator Hillary Clinton won a decisive victory in yesterday's Nevada caucus, giving her all-important momentum in the Democratic presidential nomination race.
It followed some dirty last-minute campaigning in which she accused supporters of her main rival, Senator Barack Obama, of attempting to intimidate her voters.
The former first lady had almost 51 per cent of the vote to Obama's 45 per cent. John Edwards, who had polled neck and neck with the others just a few days ago, suffered a collapse to less than 4 per cent.
"I guess this is how the West was won," Clinton said in Las Vegas, telling reporters later: "This is one step on a long journey throughout the country."
Clinton had the support of almost the entire Democratic Party establishment in Nevada, along with the teachers' union and some smaller white-collar unions.
Obama was counting on the organisational clout of the 60,000-strong Culinary Workers' Union, which has a strong presence in the state's casinos.
Much of the heat of the final stages of the campaign focused on nine at-large caucus sites established in casinos along the Las Vegas Strip for shift workers unable to get to their home precincts.
The Clinton campaign denounced the at-large precincts as inherently unfair, saying the presence of the culinary workers' union would give Obama an inbuilt advantage. An unsuccessful lawsuit was launched on their behalf to try to close the precincts down. The Clinton camp also accused the union of making threats against its members if they tried to vote for anyone other than Obama.
Turnout at the public caucus was more than 100,000, roughly one-quarter of the number of registered Democrats across the state, and almost twice as many as Democratic Party officials had projected.
Despite Edwards' reputation as the union guy, and Obama's key endorsements, it was clear that plenty of unionised workers support the Clintons. "You get two people for the price of one on her ticket, her and Bill. And Bill was a great president," said Kathy Barnum, a food servicer at the Circus Circus casino.
All that is good news for Clinton, who has argued that she alone has the substance and the experience necessary to shift course after two terms of George W. Bush.
With Clinton leading in the opinion polls in New York and California, she is on course, barring some unforeseen upset, to have the nomination wrapped up in 17 days.
Obama is under pressure to snatch a victory in South Carolina. He should have it a little easier as the electorate for the Democratic primary is overwhelmingly black.
Obama must now walk the fine line of appealing to African Americans to support the first viable black candidate for the White House, without making race a campaign issue and damaging his support in the rest of the country.
Much of his success up to now has come from his ability to transcend race, appealing to white as well as black and other ethnic voters.
After two defeats, in New Hampshire and now Nevada, Obama has only a week of electioneering ahead of him to maintain the lead he is showing in the local polls.
- INDEPENDENT
