WASHINGTON -- Republican Mike Huckabee notched nominating contest wins in Kansas and Louisiana Saturday, beating rival and delegate front-runner John McCain on the strength of conservative voters. On the Democratic side, Barack Obama swept contests in Louisiana, Nebraska and Washington.

Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, got nearly 60 percent of the Kansas caucus vote a few hours after telling conservatives in Washington, "I majored in miracles, and I still believe in them." He won all 36 delegates at stake. And he later basked in his victory.

"The voters of Kansas spoke today -- they spoke with one voice. They said I am the authentic conservative in this race. Clearly, I am pleased by these results, but it is onward and upward to Virginia and Maryland as we head into the Potomac primaries on Tuesday," Huckabee said.

"I'm delighted that the good people of Kansas honored me with their vote. They, like people in the other 26 states who were not a part of Super Tuesday, deserve to have their voice heard, and I am grateful for their support," he said.

Obama was equally ebullient.

"We won north. We won south. We won in between," Obama told a cheering audience at the the Democrats' annual Jefferson-Jackson fundraising dinner in Richmond, shortly after the winning projections were made.

Calling McCain the "presumptive Republican nominee," Obama said the former POW was a "genuine American hero," and "we honor his half-century of service to this nation." But he painted McCain as part of a broken Washington political system, and said he was too close to the policies of President George W. Bush.

"The wheels came off the 'Straight Talk Express,'" Obama said, referring to the name of McCain's campaign bus. "Republicans are running on the politics of the past."

Speaking earlier in Richmond, Clinton did not refer to the night's voting, but also turned against McCain.

"We have tried it President Bush's way," she said, "and now the Republicans have chosen more of the same."

She left quickly after her speech, departing before Obama's arrival. But his supporters made their presence known, sending up chants of "Obama" from the audience as she made her way offstage.

Delegates Tallied

Obama won most of the delegates in Nebraska and all the delegates in the Virgin Islands Saturday night. He had the delegate lead in the Washington state caucuses where there are 78 delegates at stake, but those will not be awarded until Sunday or Monday because the state party was unable to provide complete results in all but two of the state's nine congressional districts.

While Obama won Louisiana, he'll share the delegates for the party's nomination there with Clinton. Sixty-seven Democratic delegates will be awarded mainly on the proportion of vote received by the candidates. That makes it unlikely the delegates awarded to each would be clear Saturday night.

Overall, an Associated Press tally said that Clinton had 1,084 delegates, including separately chosen party and elected officials known as superdelegates. Obama had 1,057. It will take 2,025 delegates to secure the Democratic nomination.

Huckabee swept all 36 delegates in the Kansas GOP caucuses, in what could be the only Republican delegates awarded on Saturday.

In Louisiana, all 20 GOP delegates go to the primary winner, but only if the winner gets more than 50 percent of the vote. If no one clears that threshold, the delegates will be chosen at the party's state convention next weekend. It was not clear at midnight whether Huckabee crossed that threshold.

Washington had 18 GOP delegates at stake. They will be awarded through a multistep process based on votes in individual congressional districts, but the party provided only statewide results Saturday.

McCain still has a commanding lead in the GOP delegate race with 719. Huckabee had 234. It will take 1,191 delegates to secure the Republican nomination.

In Louisiana, Race Matters

In the Louisiana Democratic race, about one in five voters said gender was an important factor in their vote and about as many said that about race. Of those whites who said race was an issue in their vote, almost 9 in 10 of them voted for Hillary Rodham Clinton, while blacks who said it was important voted 9 in 10 for Barack Obama. The racial gap in Louisiana was more extreme than in many other states this year: 9 in 10 blacks voted for Obama, while 7 in 10 whites voted for Clinton.

Seven in 10 Republicans called themselves conservatives, and almost half said they were "very conservative." John McCain won overwhelmingly among the minority of moderates, while Mike Huckabee won among the most conservative voters. The two candidates split the votes of those who said they were "somewhat conservative."

In the Democratic race, 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 overwhemingly for 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 Obama tends to be associated with change in this campaign, most younger whites voted for Clinton instead of Obama. Blacks of all ages favored change, and they voted overwhelmingly for Obama. Most younger voters were black, while most older voters were white.

In the Republican race, almost half of the voters were born-again, evangelical Christians, and most of them voted for Huckabee. The former Baptist minister also won two-thirds of those voters who said they were looking for a candidate who shares their values. Huckabee won half the votes of Republicans favoring a candidate who says what he believes, usually a quality associated with McCain, who won only a third of those voters. McCain has nicknamed his campaign bus after his "straight talk" theme. McCain won overwhemingly among those Republicans who favored a candidate with experience.

What Comes Next

With the night's events, 29 of the 50 states have selected delegates. Two more -- Michigan and Florida -- held renegade primaries and the Democratic National Committee has vowed not to seat any delegates chosen at either of them.

Maine, with 24 delegates, holds caucuses on Sunday. Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia and voting by Americans overseas are next, on Tuesday, with 175 combined.

Then follows a brief intermission, followed by a string of election nights, some crowded, some not. The date of March 4 looms large, 370 delegates in primaries in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont.

Mississippi is alone in holding a primary one week later, with a relatively small 33 delegates at stake. Puerto Rico anchors the Democratic calendar, with 55 delegates chosen in caucuses on June 7.