As Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton took a virtual victory lap of the morning talk shows yesterday, the Obama campaign insisted that her decisive Pennsylvania victory had done little to alter the overall dynamics of the Democratic presidential race.

Mrs. Clinton argued that her ability to win votes from the party's working-class base had fueled a series of big-state victories, including Pennsylvania, that demonstrated her greater potential as a general-election candidate.

David Plouffe, Sen. Barack Obama's campaign manager, told reporters that when the counting is completed, Mrs. Clinton will have netted no more than 12 delegates from Pennsylvania, still leaving her with a clear deficit as the long nominating battle moves to within a month of its final contests. Only by winning 70 percent of the remaining votes, he contended, could the New York senator erase the gap in elected delegates.

Gov. Ed Rendell, Mrs. Clinton's chief ally in the Keystone State, argued that the pledged delegate margin was not the sole or best indicator of who should be the party's nominee. He said superdelegates should consider the electability test -- one that, he contended, Mrs. Clinton had passed with flying colors in his state.

"This was an awesome victory," he said while maintaining that it should make clear to superdelegates that she would be "the best standard bearer in the fall."

Echoing a new Clinton campaign talking point, he also argued that Mrs. Clinton would be the clear leader in the popular vote by the end of the primary balloting, "especially if you count Florida.''

Most tabulations of the race thus far show Mr. Obama with the lead in both popular vote and pledged delegates. But some creative accounting in Mrs. Clinton's favor allows the assertion that she is, or will be, the popular-vote champion.

To reach that conclusion, the Clinton campaign includes the votes she received in Michigan and Florida -- two states where no one campaigned because their scheduling violated Democratic Party rules. With them, Mrs. Clinton has 15.1 million to Mr. Obama's 15 million. Without those two states, however -- in the measure used by most neutral observers -- Mr. Obama leads with 14.4 million to 13.9 million. That is a difference that, like the pledged-delegate tally, will be extremely difficult for Mrs. Clinton to overcome in the remaining nine contests.

The chief audience for these competitive compilations comprises the superdelegates who have yet to declare their allegiances. Yesterday, the candidates split 2-to-1 in that crucial category, as Tennessee Rep. John Tanner endorsed Mrs. Clinton, while Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry and Audra Ostergard, a Democratic National Committee member from Nebraska, lined up with Mr. Obama.

In Pennsylvania, Mrs. Clinton won by about 215,000 out of the record of roughly 2.3 million votes cast in the Democratic primary. While the counting was still not complete, the Associated Press estimated that Mrs. Clinton had won 82 pledged delegates from the state, while Mr. Obama had 73. Overall, according to the AP count, Mr. Obama had 1,719.5, and Mrs. Clinton, 1,591.5

Mrs. Clinton also won a financial boost from her big win, one that may prove more significant than the immediate delegate boost. Her primary account was in the red at the end of March, while Mr. Obama was flush with more than $40 million in cash going into the final 10 contests. The Clinton campaign announced that the Pennsylvania win had been the catalyst for a surge in Internet contributions and claimed that they were on track to raising $10 million in the first full day after the state's polls closed.

In the little-noted Republican balloting, Arizona Sen. John S. McCain, whose nomination is already a fait accompli, rolled to a huge victory over the only other Republicans whose names remained on the ballot, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Texas Rep. Ron Paul. Mr. McCain had 576,088 votes, or 73 percent, compared with 125,810, or 16 percent, for Mr. Paul and 90,002, or 12 percent, for Mr. Huckabee.

In a post-mortem conference call on Tuesday's contest, Mr. Rendell said one key to Mrs. Clinton's strong overall showing was her ability to battle Mr. Obama to a stalemate in the Philadelphia suburbs -- communities that had been seen as a prime target for the Illinois senator. He noted that Mrs. Clinton had won the immediate Philadelphia suburbs by 15,000 votes while building a 31,000-vote edge in adjoining Lehigh Valley, which shares the Philadelphia media market.

"The reason Sen. Clinton won the suburbs I think is directly attributable to her debate performance; if the election was held prior to the debate, she would have lost," the governor said, maintaining that her "sharp, clear" performance "really turned around the suburbs."

Reflecting on his own heavy involvement in Mrs. Clinton's Pennsylvania drive, Mr. Rendell said, "I was struck by the thought that this was the last campaign that I will probably fully immerse myself in."

He said the six weeks of campaigning also "reinforced my view that I can only work for myself." Speaking of the Clinton staff, he said, "They were always shoving talking points in my hands ... with the full knowledge that I would ignore them."