So say political pundits and a Clinton supporter, after they watched the returns from the North Carolina and Indiana primaries on Tuesday night.

Mrs Clinton won Indiana by a narrow margin of 51per cent to her rival's 49per cent, but Mr Barack Obama romped home in North Carolina by a margin of 56per cent to 42 per cent.

Mr Obama thus moved within 200 delegates of clinching the nomination.

In North Carolina, he used his victory speech to cast himself as the Democrats' heir apparent for the November election against Republican John McCain.

After watching the outcome, former senator George McGovern, an early Clinton supporter, urged her to drop out of the Democratic presidential race and endorse her rival.

It is virtually impossible for her to win the nomination, he said.

The Clinton camp admits she cannot overtake Mr Obama in pledged delegates, who will formally anoint the nominee at the party's convention in Denver, Colorado.

Mrs Clinton also underlined her funding woes when she announced that she had again loaned her indebted campaign more funds - a total of US$6.4 million (S$8.6 million) in the past month.

Mr McGovern, the 1972 Democratic presidential nominee, said he intended to call ex-president Bill Clinton to tell him of the decision to support Mr Obama, adding that he remained close friends with the Clintons.

His announcement came a day before Mrs Clinton was scheduled to travel to South Dakota to campaign. The state holds its primary on June 3 and has only 15 pledged delegates at stake.

'She has run a valiant campaign. And she will remain an influential voice in the American future,' Mr McGovern, 85, said on TV.

But Mr Obama has won the nomination 'by any practical test' and is very close to a majority of the pledged delegates, he said.

It is among the superdelegates - even more than in the six remaining primaries - that the Democratic drama is bound to play out.

Mr Obama won at least 94 delegates and Mrs Clinton at least 79 in the two states combined, with 14 still to be divided between the two candidates.

Overall, his delegate total reached 1,842, compared to 1,692 for Mrs Clinton, out of 2,025 needed to win the party's nomination.

But with only 217 delegates at stake in the remaining contests, it is essentially mathematically impossible for either candidate to secure the necessary number of elected delegates - making superdelegate support the linchpin to winning the nomination.

ABC News correspondent George Stephanopoulos, a former adviser in Mr Bill Clinton's White House, said the Obama camp would be rolling out superdelegate endorsements 'three, four, five at a time - and this nomination will be locked up'.

ASSOCIATED PRESS