Democratic and Republican White House hopefuls are making their final Super Tuesday pitches as voters in 24 states and American Samoa are heading to the polls.
Super Tuesday is virtually a national primary day, and some of the biggest prizes of the primary season -- California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Missouri and Georgia -- are up for grabs.
More than four-fifths of the 2,025 delegates needed to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination and more than 1,000 of the 1,191 necessary delegates on the Republican side are at stake.
Tuesday's results are more likely to decide the presumptive presidential nominee in the Republican contest than in the Democratic contest because of the way the GOP allocates delegates.
Victors in the Republican primaries and caucuses usually enjoy a winner-take-all delegate system, while Democrats parcel out delegates on a proportional basis
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton cast her ballot in her home state of New York Tuesday morning. She was joined by her husband, former President Clinton, and her daughter, Chelsea.
The stakes are huge for our country, a lot of big challenges, but America's up to it," Clinton said after casting her vote. "We just need a president who's ready on day one to turn the economy around and become commander in chief and get our country back on the right track."
Obama started his Super Tuesday on the opposite coast. During an interview with CNN from San Francisco, California, the Illinois Democrat promoted his health care plan, a key issue for California voters.
"Our focus has been on reducing costs, making it available. I am confident that if people have a chance to buy high-quality health care that is affordable, they will do so," Obama said.
GOP nominees Sen. John McCain of Arizona, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee will be scrambling for votes throughout the day.
Two front-runners, McCain and Romney, have engaged in some bitter exchanges over each others conservative records
McCain started his day at a rally in New York flanked by former New York City mayor and presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani and independent Sen. Joe Lieberman. McCain told supporters on a Manhattan street that he would "take the battle to the enemy."
"I guarantee you, as the nominee of my party, I can and will carry the city of New York as well as the state of New York, because we know how to appeal to independents," he said.
McCain was scheduled to fly to California, a key Super Tuesday state, for events in San Diego and was set to finish his day in Phoenix, Arizona.
McCain's closest rival for GOP nomination, Romney, told delegates at the West Virginia Republican convention Tuesday that wins in California and other Super Tuesday states would put him in position to win his party's nomination.
"It will indicate the conservative voices in our party are standing up and saying, 'wait a second, we want to make sure that this party does not leave the house that [former President] Ronald Reagan built," Romney said in Charleston, West Virginia.
"And if that happens, I think we're going to see a very clear pathway to gain additional delegates from the ongoing contests, and put together the winning combination to get the nomination."
While last-minute polls indicate Romney has gained ground against McCain in California, Romney is likely to split races with Huckabee in the South, Republican strategist John Feehery said.
In the Northeastern states and Midwest, I think John McCain is going to win," Feehery said. "I think it's really hard for Mitt Romney to get this nomination."
On the Democratic side, the surviving contenders -- Obama and Clinton -- are likely to split the delegates more evenly, Democratic analyst Peter Fenn said.
"I think that Obama clearly has an advantage in those seven states that are doing caucuses," Fenn said. "I think she's got to carry the big states that she had planned on. California is clearly up for grabs now ... Unless one or the other gets annihilated, I think they go on to many more Tuesdays."
In a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll out Monday, the two Democratic front-runners were virtually tied
Obama, who trounced Clinton in January's South Carolina primary, garnered 49 percent of registered Democrats in Monday's poll, while Clinton trailed by just 3 percentage points. View the latest poll results »
With a sampling error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points, that margin is too close to say which Democrat is leading
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