WRAPUP 9-Clinton cruises to easy win in West Virginia

(Adds vote count, details)

By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent

WASHINGTON, May 13 (Reuters) - Hillary Clinton scored a big victory over front-runner Barack Obama in West Virginia on Tuesday, although it could be too little and too late to stop his march to the Democratic presidential nomination.

Clinton hoped the landslide win in a state dominated by the white working-class voters who have been her biggest supporters would turn around her campaign and bolster her case that she is the Democrat with the best chance to beat Republican John McCain in November's election.

Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, retains a nearly insurmountable advantage in delegates who will select the nominee at the party convention in August. West Virginia had only 28 delegates at stake.

Clinton vowed to keep fighting until the Democratic voting ends on June 3 despite her dwindling prospects and a mounting campaign debt.

"I am more determined than ever to carry on this campaign until everyone has had a chance to make their voices heard," Clinton told a victory celebration in Charleston, West Virginia.

"This race isn't over yet. Neither of us has the total delegates it takes to win," the New York senator and former first lady said, adding: "We are in the home stretch."

Clinton, whose campaign is at least $20 million in debt, appealed for money to keep her White House bid alive.

"I'm asking people to think hard about where we are in this election, about how we will win in November," she said, noting her strength in big states like Ohio and Pennsylvania that are critical in a presidential election.

With over half of the votes counted in West Virginia, Clinton led Obama by more than 35 percentage points.

Obama, who made only one brief campaign stop in West Virginia before the contest, visited the general election battleground of Missouri on Tuesday. He already was looking ahead to a November match-up with McCain.

"A vote for John McCain is a vote for George Bush's third term," Obama said in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. "We cannot afford any more of the Bush-McCain program."

Obama did not appear in public after the voting ended in West Virginia, but a campaign spokeswoman said he left Clinton a congratulatory message on her mobile phone. He is scheduled to make stops in the general-election battleground states of Michigan on Wednesday and in Florida next week.

SUPERDELEGATE LEAD

A delegate count by MSNBC gives Obama 1,880 delegates to Clinton's 1,718 with six more delegates to be awarded in West Virginia. That leaves him 145 short of the 2,025 needed to clinch the nomination.