Senator Barack Obama won powerful victories over Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in Washington, Louisiana and Nebraska, giving him a Saturday sweep going into a month when the Democratic nominating contests are expected to favor him.

    The successes come just as Mr. Obama is enjoying a strong advantage over Mrs. Clinton in raising money. Still, the results were expected to do little to settle the muddle in the delegate race that resulted after the wave of contests last Tuesday in which the two candidates split up states from coast to coast.

    In Republican contests on Saturday, Mike Huckabee won in Kansas, an embarrassing setback to Senator John McCain as he tries to rally the party around him as the nominee. The two were locked in races in Louisiana and Washington that were too close to call. The Associated Press called the Louisiana race for Mr. Huckabee.

    While Mr. Obama had been expected to win the contests on Saturday, the margin of victories were surprising, particularly in Washington, a predominately white state where he captured 57 percent of the vote in caucus voting compared to Mrs. Clinton's 31 percent. And in Nebraska, which also held caucuses, he received an impressive 68 percent of the vote to Mrs. Clinton's 32 percent.

    "Today, voters from the West Coast, the Gulf Coast and the heart of America are joining the chorus of Americans who are choosing change over more of the same failed politics in Washington. They see in Barack Obama the best chance to beat John McCain in the fall, unite our country, take on the special interests, and confront the challenges facing working families," said Obama campaign manager David Plouffe.

    In the Lousiana primary, Mr. Obama received 57 percent of the vote to Mrs. Clinton's 36 percent.

    The results on the Republican side provided their own surprise, particularly since Mr. Huckabee's victories in Kansas came as Mr. McCain seemed headed to the nomination.

    Mr. Huckabee declared that the voters had spoken: "They spoke with one voice: they said I am the authentic conservative in this race."

    The McCain campaign played down Mr. Huckabee's victories, saying they were expected.

    "John McCain is the presumptive nominee in this race and our path forward is unchanged by today's results," a spokeswoman, Jill Hazelbaker, said. "Our focus remains the same: uniting the Republican Party to defeat Democrats in 2008.

    Even before any results were in, Mr. Huckabee told reporters Saturday that despite the daunting number of delegates Mr. McCain has amassed, he was not pulling out of the race. Mr. Huckabee, a pastor before he became governor of Arkansas, said: "I didn't major in math. I majored in miracles, and I still believe in them, too."

    In Washington, the Democratic Party reported record-breaking numbers of people attending caucuses, with early totals suggesting turnout would be nearly be nearly double what it was in 2004 - itself a record year - when 100,000 Democrats caucused.

    While Mr. Obama's victories were impressive, the Democratic Party awards delegates proportionally, so Mrs. Clinton stands to walk away from the contests with a sizable number, and both campaigns have dug in for a long and fierce delegate fight.

    With the fight for the nomination extending beyond the 22 contests on Feb. 5, voters in a fresh batch of states have suddenly found themselves in the thick of the most competitive primary in a generation, after years of casting votes well after the nominee was effectively chosen.

    The nominating fight now turns to Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia, which hold their primaries on Tuesday. Mr. Obama is considered well-positioned in those states.

    The Republican contest seems more settled, with Mr. McCain holding a nearly unsurmountable lead in delegates over Mr. Huckabee. Still, before the Kansas results came in Saturday, Mr. Huckabee addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington and then told reporters he had no intention of dropping out until one of the Republican candidates amassed the 1,191 delegates needed to be the nominee.

    Mr. McCain has 695 delegates so far, Mr. Huckabee, 159, and Mr. Paul, 5.

    Mr. McCain is far enough ahead in the delegate race that his advisers have said it would be all but impossible for anyone else to win the nomination. His other chief contender, Mitt Romney, bowed to those odds when he suspended his campaign on Thursday.

    After the caucus vote in Kansas, Mr. Huckabee told reporters that Republican leaders "ought to be begging me to stay in" the race. "It's an awfully weak party that can't handle competition," he was quoted as saying by The Associated Press. "Competition breeds excellence."

    He compared himself to Ronald Reagan challenging Gerald R. Ford for the Republican nomination in 1976. "He was the pariah of the party," he said. "Now people love Ronald Reagan."

    On the Democratic side, after being in Washington on Friday, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama switched coasts on Saturday, campaigning in Maine , which holds its caucuses on Sunday. Both then headed to Virginia where they were due to address about 4,000 Democratic officials and activists Saturday night at the state party's annual Jefferson-Jackson day fund-raiser.

    The dinner stands as a major barometer of support among the state's most dedicated Democrats with the two candidates virtually deadlocked in their quest for national convention delegates three days before Mid-Atlantic neighbors Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia hold their primaries.

    Then comes a brief intermission, followed by a string of election nights, some crowded, some not.

    The date of March 4 looms large, with 370 delegates in primaries in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont.

    In Louisiana meanwhile, exit polls showed about one in five voters said gender was an important factor in their vote in the historic Democratic contest to nominate either the first black or first woman for president, The Associated Press reported. About as many said the same thing about race. Of those whites who said race was an issue in their vote, almost 9 in 10 of them voted for Mrs. Clinton, while blacks who said it was important voted 9 in 10 for Mr. Obama. The racial gap in Louisiana was more extreme than in many other states this year: 9 in 10 blacks voted for Mr. Obama, while 7 in 10 whites voted for Mrs. Clinton.

    Unlike previous Democratic contests, there was apparently no significant gender gap, with men and women voting in similar ways, even across races. Mrs. Clinton won the votes of most white men, a group she has lost to Obama in some states but has tended to win in the South. Those women who said gender was important to their vote went 6 in 10 for Mrs. Clinton, while women who said gender wasn't important went 6 in 10 for Mr. Obama.

    Voters over 50 years old were much more likely than those under 50 to say they were looking for a candidate with experience, and those looking for experience voted overwhelmingly for Mrs. Clinton. While older whites favored change and experience about evenly, more than half of younger whites favored a candidate who would bring about needed change. But even though Mr. Obama tends to be associated with change in this campaign, most younger whites voted for Mrs. Clinton instead of Obama. Blacks of all ages favored change, and they voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Obama. Most younger voters were black, while most older voters were white.

    Given three choices, nearly half of Democratic voters said the economy was the most important issue facing the country. About three in 10 said the war in Iraq and the rest said health care. Nine in 10 Democrats rated the national economy not good or poor. Mr. Obama had a slight edge among those Democrats concerned about the economy and Iraq, while Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama tied among voters concerned about health care.

    One the Republican side, one in three Republican voters said the economy was the top issue. Each of the other three choices presented to them - the war in Iraq, illegal immigration and terrorism - was picked by one in five voters. Half of Republicans viewed the economy positively, the A.P. reported. Mr. Huckabee had an advantage among Republicans most concerned about the economy and terrorism, while Mr. McCain had an advantage among voters concerned about the war in Iraq. The two were about even among voters concerned about immigration.

    In the Republican race, almost half of the voters were born-again, evangelical Christians, and most of them voted for Mr. Huckabee. The former Baptist minister also won two-thirds of those voters who said they were looking for a candidate who shares their values.

    Mr. Huckabee won half the votes of Republicans favoring a candidate who says what he believes, usually a quality associated with Mr. McCain, who won only a third of those voters. Mr. McCain, who has nicknamed his campaign bus after his "straight talk" theme, won overwhelmingly among those Republicans who favored a candidate with experience.

    -The exit polls came from partial samples of 709 Democratic primary voters and 368 Republican primary voters conducted by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International in 30 precincts across Louisiana on Saturday. Margin of sampling error plus or minus 6 percentage points for the Democratic primary and 8 points for the Republican.

    On the campaign trail in Lewiston, Me., on Saturday, Mrs. Clinton continued to emphasize that her health care package made her a better contrast, and thus a better opponent, to Mr. McCain.

    On the day before the Maine Democratic caucuses, Mrs. Clinton disparaged Mr. Obama as being soft on the issue of health care, an issue she has made a centerpiece of her campaign.

    "I am the only candidate left in this race on either side who is committed to universal health care," she said. "It is a core value, it is a human right. It is not a privilege."

    Mrs. Clinton spoke highly of John Edwards, who dropped out of the race before the Super Tuesday primaries.

    "I want to compliment Senator Edwards, who is a fighter," Mrs. Clinton said. "There is a lot that John and I have in common. And I intend to ask John Edwards to be a part of anything I do."

    A campaign spokeswoman said that Mrs. Clinton was not necessarily naming Edwards as a running mate in the event of her nomination.

    Maine appeared to be one of the post-Super Tuesday states where Mrs. Clinton was very competitive with Mr. Obama, although there have been no polls. A victory could help Mrs. Clinton blunt the edge of what many analysts suggest will be Mr. Obama's expected victories in some of the other eight states voting before Ohio and Texas in March.

    "If she wants to win before March, Maine is her best shot," said Mark Brewer, a political scientist at the University of Maine in Orono.

    At stake in Maine are 34 delegates, 10 of whom will be unpledged superdelegates. They are allocated proportionately, and with the national delegate count neck and neck, each one matters.

    Analysts say that Mrs. Clinton could run well against Mr. Obama here because many of Maine's voters fit the demographic profile of voters she has won elsewhere: older, blue-collar and heavily female, in a state that is economically stressed. It has a large population of people without college degrees and who make less than $50,000 a year. Almost all voters here are white.

    "The demographics don't favor Obama," said Amy Fried, also a political scientist at the University of Maine. "But there are other factors at work, like a populist, independent streak, that could work for Obama."

    Mr. Obama is expected to do well with the state's more affluent voters in the southern part of the state and its many college students. In addition, he has won most of the states that have held caucuses, which require a strong organization and a more devoted following.

    After flying in from Chicago, Mr. Obama went to Nicky's, a popular retro diner, for his first event, here in the northern half of the state. He held a round table discussion in which he talked about the economy, health-care costs and college tuition issues with four middle-class voters, at least three of whom make less than $44,000.

    Afterward, he drew 10,000 people to a thunderous rally here at the Bangor Auditorium, where 7,000 people were packed to the rafters and about 3,000 others constituted an overflow crowd outside, according to official estimates.

    He took some shots at Mr. McCain and Mrs. Clinton but fired up the crowd when he talked about hope. When John F. Kennedy looked up at the moon, Mr. Obama said, "he didn't say, 'Ah, it's too far.' He said, 'Let's go!'"

    "This is our moment, Bangor" he declared. "This is our time."

    The caucuses in Maine take place on Sunday, with sites open at varying intervals throughout the day. The last closes at 8 P.M.

    Officials are expecting a high turnout here, just as in other states. In 2004, 17,000 Democrats turned out. About 4,000 absentee ballots had been cast by Wednesday's deadline.

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    Kate Zernike reported from New York and Katharine Q. Seelye from Bangor, Me. Paul Vitello, Steven Lee Myers and David D. Kirkpatrick contributed reporting from Washington and Joel Elliott from Lewiston, Me.

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