Obama Claims the Democratic Presidential Nomination

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Obama: 'I Will Be the Democratic Nominee'

Democrat Barack Obama spoke before thousands of supporters in St. Paul, Minnesota Tuesday; as he earned enough delegates to claim his party's nomination. Obama praised his democratic challengers, especially Hillary Rodham Clinton.

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Obama also made a direct appeal to Clinton supporters, especially women, who may be unhappy about the tenor and the results of the Democratic primary. "At the end of the day we aren't the reason you came out and waited in lines that stretched block after block to make your voice heard," said Obama. "You didn't do that because of me or Senator Clinton or anyone else."

Obama scored his final primary victory in Montana and was quickly endorsed by the state's governor as well as the two Democratic senators. Clinton, meanwhile, claimed a come-from-behind victory in South Dakota, after trailing in the state for weeks.

Clinton, who spoke roughly 30 minutes before Obama at Baruch College in New York City, congratulated the Illinois senator for the "extraordinary race" he ran, although she did not acknowledge he had effectively won the nomination and stressed that "I will be making no decisions tonight" about her future plans.

Clinton repeatedly touted her popular vote strength, noting that she had received nearly 18 million total votes. "Even when the pundits and the naysayers proclaimed week after week that this race was over, you kept on voting," she said to roars from the assembled crowd. She added that her campaign has won the swing states "necessary to get to 270 electoral votes."

Mathematically, there is little debate that Obama is his party's presumptive nominee. As polls closed in Montana at 10 p.m. Eastern time, the Obama campaign rolled out more than two dozen superdelegates -- putting him well above the 2,118 delegates required to become the formal nominee of his party.

Obama had 2,146 total delegates -- 28 more than he needed to cinch the nomination -- according to Associated Press' calculations. Clinton had 1,907 delegates.