Super Tuesday voting kicks off in 24 states

By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The biggest day of U.S. presidential nominating contests kicked off on Tuesday with Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton battling for advantage and Republican John McCain aiming to knock Mitt Romney out of the race.

Republican Mike Huckabee struck the first blow on Tuesday with a win in West Virginia, one of 24 states holding nominating contests on "Super Tuesday" that will yield a huge haul of delegates to this summer's conventions to nominate candidates for the November presidential election.

Clinton, a New York senator, was hoping to hold off a late surge by Obama, an Illinois senator who has almost caught her in national polls and leads in several states taking part in the coast-to-coast voting.

"The fact that we've made so much progress I think indicates that we've got the right message," Obama said on NBC's "Today" show.

More than half the total Democratic delegates and about 40 percent of the Republican delegates are up for grabs. Georgia is the first state to end voting at 7 p.m. EST (2400 GMT).

Huckabee, a Baptist preacher and former Arkansas governor, won in the second round of balloting at the West Virginia Republican convention after Romney led on the first ballot. Huckabee was aided by McCain voters who switched to him to deny Romney a victory, drawing a protest from Romney's camp.

"This is what Senator McCain's inside Washington ways look like: he cut a backroom deal with the tax-and-spend candidate he thought could best stop Governor Romney's campaign of conservative change," Romney campaign manager Beth Myers said.

McCain criticized Romney for complaining.

"Generally speaking, rather than blame it on someone else, I suggest that he move on," McCain told reporters. "It's a bit insulting to Gov. Huckabee, who won that, by suggesting such a thing."

Economic concerns -- plunging housing values, rising energy and food prices, jittery financial markets and new data showing a big contraction in the service sector -- have eclipsed the Iraq war as voters' top concern, opinion polls show.

BIGGEST PRIZE

A new Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll showed Romney leading McCain by 7 points in California, the biggest Super Tuesday prize. But McCain, a senator from Arizona, held commanding double-digit advantages in many of the largest states.

Huckabee aimed for a strong showing in the South with its concentration of evangelical Christians.

Among Democrats, the Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll showed Obama opening a 13-point lead on Clinton in California, where polls close at 11 p.m. EST (0400 GMT on Wednesday). Other opinion polls showed a much tighter race in California, and close Democratic battles in many other states.

Clinton and Obama have split the first four significant contests and spent heavily on advertising from coast to coast.