Clinton wins Puerto Rico, releases new TV ad claiming more votes than Obama

Senator Hillary Clinton claimed another victory today, winning the Puerto Rico primary by a lopsided margin of 68 percent to 32 percent. At the same time, she released a new television ad that almost seemed to claim victory in the primary campaign.

After the victory, the Clinton campaign quickly posted a fundraising message on the entry page of its web site: "Thank You Puerto Rico. Keep The Momentum Going! Contribute $5 Below."

The final two primaries, in South Dakota and Montana, will take place on Tuesday, June 3. Senator Obama is expected to do well in those two states, according to polls. But Clinton is hammering away at her argument that she has won more votes than any other candidate in the race, and in fact, more votes than any other candidate in history.

Clinton's argument is based on counting the disputed ballots in Florida and Michigan, two contests in which the Democrats agreed last year not to compete after those states violated party rules by moving up their primaries. Obama's camp has argued that the results from Michigan cannot be included in the popular vote tally because his name did not appear on the ballot.

The popular vote tally also does not include the actual raw votes in several caucus states, where Obama performed well, that have not released the number of votes won per candidate.

CNN reported Sunday that Clinton would still have the lead even if Obama received all of the "uncommitted" votes in Michigan. "If all the primary results including Florida and Michigan are counted, but not the caucus votes, Clinton leads in the popular vote 17,461,845 to Obama's 17,244,762," CNN estimated. That would give Clinton a lead of 217,083 votes.

But in another scenario, in which CNN estimated the raw vote of the unreported caucus-goers, Obama leads Clinton by 85,000 votes, 17,928,000 to 17,843,000.

Puerto Rico has 55 delegates to the convention under Democratic Party rules, but residents of the territory are not allowed to vote in U.S. presidential elections in the fall. Clinton picked up 38 delegates and Obama won 17 on Sunday, according to figures reported by CNN.

There are only 31 delegates remaining to be elected on Tuesday, but Clinton's new campaign ad (shown below) indicates she intends to compete for every delegate and every vote. The ad, released on Sunday, says that "17 million Americans have voted for Hillary Clinton, more than for any primary candidate in history."