Barack Obama scored an easy win in North Carolina on Tuesday to take a big step toward the Democratic presidential nomination, while Hillary Clinton battled for a victory in Indiana that would keep her faint White House hopes alive.

With a double-digit win over Clinton in North Carolina's nominating contest, Obama rebounded from a rough campaign stretch fueled by his comments on "bitter" small-town residents and a controversy over racially charged comments by his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Clinton held a narrow 17,000-vote lead on Obama with 95 percent of the vote counted in Indiana by early on Wednesday.

The uncounted votes were in a northwest Indiana county with a sizable black population near Obama's hometown of Chicago, where he could be expected to do well.

CBS News projected on Tuesday evening that Clinton would win in Indiana, but no other networks called the race.

The two Democrats are embroiled in a grueling battle for the right to represent the party in November's presidential election against Republican John McCain.

"We have seen that it's possible to overcome the politics of division and distraction, that it's possible to overcome the same old negative attacks," Obama told cheering supporters in Raleigh, North Carolina.

His speech took the tone of a candidate already fighting the general election.

Obama, a 46-year-old Illinois senator who would be the first black US president, started his remarks by congratulating Clinton on "what appears to be a victory in the great state of Indiana." But hours after he spoke, the gap in Indiana narrowed dramatically to give him a chance of a win.

An upbeat Clinton told supporters in Indianapolis: "It's full speed on to the White House."    

Clinton, a 60-year-old New York senator and former first lady who would be the country's first woman president, also asked for donations to keep alive her campaign, which has been heavily outspent by Obama.

In North Carolina, Obama beat Clinton by 56 percent to 42 percent of the vote, with 99 percent of precincts reporting, according to MSNBC.

The big victory moved him closer to the 2,025 delegates needed to clinch the nomination at the party's August convention.

The result was a heavy blow to Clinton's efforts to overtake Obama in either delegates or popular votes won during the state-by-state nominating contests that began in January.

Indiana and North Carolina, with a combined 187 delegates to the Democrats' convention at stake, were the biggest prizes left in the race. Only six contests remain with a combined 217 delegates at stake.

Obama has an almost unassailable lead in pledged delegates who will help select the Democratic nominee. An MSNBC count gave Obama 1,818 total delegates to Clinton's 1,683 with only a portion of delegates awarded from Tuesday's contests.

Delegates are allocated on a proportional, rather than a winner-take-all basis, meaning the close finish in Indiana and Obama's big margin in North Carolina will expand his lead in the count.

"We're nearing the finish line," Obama's chief strategist David Axelrod told reporters. "I think we've taken another big step down the road here to ending this contest and beginning the general election campaign."    

Neither candidate will win enough delegates to clinch the race before the state-by-state voting ends on June 3, leaving the decision to nearly 800 superdelegates -- party insiders free to back any candidate.

Clinton's campaign said the race was far from over.

"They've been trying to wrap up this nomination over the will of the voters for a long time, and it hasn't worked," said Clinton spokesman Mo Elleithee. "There's a funny thing about democracy. Voters like to have a say."    

Exit polls showed the faltering US economy, which has<