CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Hillary Rodham Clinton coasted to a large, but largely symbolic victory in working-class West Virginia on Tuesday, handing Barack Obama one of his worst defeats of the campaign but scarcely slowing his march toward the Democratic presidential nomination.

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The Associated Press made its call based on surveys of voters as they left the polls.

Obama looked ahead to the Oregon primary later in the month and the general election campaign against Republican John McCain, but the defeat underscored his weakness among blue collar voters who will be pivotal in the fall.

"This is our chance to build a new majority of Democrats and independents and Republicans who know that four more years of George Bush just won't do," Obama said in Missouri, which looms as a battleground state in November.

"This is our moment to turn the page on the divisions and distractions that pass for politics in Washington," added the man seeking to become the fist black presidential nominee of a major party.

Interviews with West Virginians leaving their polling places suggested Clinton's victory could be as overwhelming as any she has gained to date, delivered by an overwhelmingly white electorate comprised of the kinds of voters who favored her in past primaries.

Nearly a quarter were 60 or older, and a similar number had no education beyond high school. More than half were in families with incomes of $50,000 or less.

Clinton's aides contended that her strength with blue-collar voters - already demonstrated in primaries in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana - makes her the more electable candidate in the fall.

"After tonight, we will have one more proof point, if you will, that Hillary Clinton is the strongest candidate Democrats can nominate," said Ann Lewis, an aide to the former first lady.

"We're going to go back starting tomorrow and talk to those superdelegates who are still uncommitted and say, 'You know what? She is the candidate who expands the electoral map.' You look at West Virginia, you look at Kentucky, you look at Arkansas, you look at Tennessee. You look at what's at stake and that's a very powerful argument."