( dpa ) - US Senator John McCain was projected Tuesday to win the Republican presidential primary in the Midwestern state of Illinois, television networks projected, based on exit polls.
Illinois ranks fourth among Super Tuesday states with 70 delegates to the centre-right Republican Party's presidential nominating convention in September. Illinois ranks third among Tuesday's Democratic states in delegates.
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was projected to win the centre-left party's Illinois primary.
Obama was widely expected to dominate Illinois, the state that elected him to the US Senate in 2004. His top rival, former first lady Hillary Clinton, is a native of the Chicago suburbs in north- eastern Illinois but has not resided there since leaving for university and now is a US senator from New York.