MILWAUKEE — Sen. John F. Kerry and his two main rivals took a final sprint across snowy Wisconsin on Monday, seeking support in a primary today that could possibly settle the fight for the Democratic presidential nomination just about a month after the first votes were cast.
Kerry hoped to extend his winning record to 15 of 17 contests, in effect locking down the nomination and turning the rest of the campaign season into an extended victory lap.
Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean were battling for second place and political survival, though each said he would go on regardless of the outcome.
There are 72 delegates at stake in Wisconsin. Going into the primary, Kerry leads with 578 delegates, Dean has 188 and Edwards has 166, according to the latest tally by Associated Press. It takes 2,161 delegates to win the nomination.
Many observers said only one of the two could seriously continue if, as polls suggest, the Massachusetts senator prevailed by a wide margin. Even then, they said, the Democratic front-runner would be exceedingly difficult to overtake.
"The voters, donors and activists have already coalesced around Kerry," said Donna Brazile, a party strategist who ran Vice President Al Gore's 2000 campaign.
But Brazile added: "As a voter and a Democrat I'd like to see the race go on for another couple of weeks. I think it would be good for both John Kerry and the party to let California and New York and a few other big states have their say."
Edwards and Dean, campaigning with no letup, said talk of dropping out of the race was premature.
At a stop in Appleton, Edwards said for the first time that he would continue campaigning even if he finished third today behind Kerry and Dean. "I'm in this very much for the long haul," he told reporters.
As if to underscore his resolve, the senator criticized his rivals by name -- something he rarely does -- for supporting trade deals that many here blame for Wisconsin's big loss of manufacturing jobs over the last three years.
"I respect very much Gov. Dean and Sen. Kerry. But they supported NAFTA," Edwards said of the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement between the U.S., Mexico and Canada. "I did not."
Dean, amid continued upheaval within his campaign, flew to four different cities to coax his supporters to the polls. The former governor insisted he too would stay in the race regardless of what happened in Wisconsin, a state he once called do-or-die.
