Democrats hold do-over convention in Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS - Barack Obama picked up new support on Saturday in Clark County Democrats' second attempt to divvy up the delegates between the party's feuding presidential hopefuls.

The Illinois senator won 46 percent of Clark County's state convention delegates in the Saturday vote. Rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton won 54 percent, according to results released by the Nevada Democratic Party.

That's a gain of two percentage points for Obama over the results from January precinct caucuses. In those contests, Clinton won Clark County with 55 percent of the delegates to Obama's 44 percent.

Both campaigns have been working for weeks to retain, if not improve on, those numbers.

Nevada will send 25 pledged delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Denver. If both candidates retain their January support, Obama will receive 13 of those delegates, Clinton 12.

But that outcome is not certain. Delegates in Nevada can switch allegiances at each stage in the process, and both campaigns are working to make sure they don't lose too much ground.

Obama picked up some new support at other county conventions held statewide in February. It was not yet clear if his gains would win him an additional delegate in Denver.

Clark County Democrats first convention ended in disaster after an unexpectedly big turnout overwhelmed organizers and the convention devolved into chaos. The Democratic National Committee ordered the county party to try again or face penalties.

Saturday's do-over convention looked more like a typical election. A pre-registered group of about 7,000 delegates voted for a slate to move on to the state convention in Reno next month. The voting, held at the Thomas & Mack arena, was tallied on voting machines.