Even before voting was finished Tuesday, Hillary Clinton had begun her push into the two states she believes can carry her campaign over the finish line first -- Texas and Ohio -- despite seven straight losses in the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Clinton held a boisterous rally in El Paso, Texas, making a strong pitch to a crowd of Hispanic voters, one of the groups Clinton hopes to tap into again to beat Barack Obama. The group was instrumental in her wins in California and Nevada.

"There's a great saying in Texas, all hat and no cattle," she told the crowd of about 12,000 at a college basketball arena in El Paso Tuesday evening. "Well, after seven years of George Bush, we need a lot less hat and lot more cattle," she said to cheers.

Before flying into Texas, she told a Cincinnati television station that "Ohio is really going to count in determining who our Democratic nominee is going to be." She also declared herself the "underdog candidate" in the Wisconsin primary next Tuesday, the same day Obama's birthplace Hawaii holds its primary.

Clinton's heavy losses in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia on Tuesday only make those states more crucial. Texas and Ohio vote March 4. Texas holds 193 pledged delegates, and another 35 unpledged delegates. Ohio holds 141 pledged delegates, and 20 unpledged ones.

She now trails Obama in the battle for state delegates to the August convention.

But Obama will not take the coming weeks lying down. Already claiming a "new American majority," he is focusing more and more on the likely Republican candidate in the November presidential election as he continues to rack up big victories over Clinton.

But he also is crafting a message that is aimed at skimming another group Clinton is counting on in the Midwest: blue-collar, middle-class workers.

Wednesday Obama plans to deliver a remarks -- billed by his campaign as a "major economics address" -- to a General Motors factory crowd on the day after the company released its worst financial losses ever.

"We are not standing on the brink of recession due to forces beyond our control. The fallout from the housing crisis that’s cost jobs and wiped out savings was not an inevitable part of the business cycle. It was a failure of leadership and imagination in Washington – the culmination of decades of decisions that were made or put off without regard to the realities of a global economy and the growing inequality it’s produced," Obama was to say in Janesville, Wis., according to prepared remarks.

A number of observers say the economic message is key to winning Ohio, including Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Clinton supporter.

"Voters in my state will not care about who won Iowa, New Hampshire, or this" primary battle Tuesday, Brown told The Washington Post. "Political momentum doesn't much matter to a middle class family that's struggling."

At the University of Wisconsin where Obama characterized his surging campaign to a crowd of 17,000. "This is what change looks like when it happens from the bottom up," he said. "This is the new American majority."

Looking ahead to November, he said that although he honors McCain's experience as a war hero, he is linked to failed policies put in place by President Bush.

"George Bush won't be on the ballot this November, but the Bush-Cheney war and the Bush-Cheney tax cuts for the wealthy will be on the ballot," he said.

On the GOP side, John McCain took another step in shoring up his credentials as the runaway Republican front-runner despite lukewarm support from the party's conservative base.

McCain told supporters in Virginia it is clear where either Obama or Clinton would take the country "and we dare not let them. They will paint a picture of the world in which America's mistakes are a greater threat to our security than the malevolent intentions of an enemy that despises us and our ideals."

The Associated Press count of delegates showed Obama with 1,223. Clinton had 1,198, falling behind for the first time since the campaign began. Neither was close to the 2,025 needed to win the nomination.

His victories Tuesday were by overwhelming margins -- 75 percent of the vote in the nation's capital , nearly two-thirds in Virginia and approximately 60 percent in Maryland.

Obama moved past Clinton in the delegate chase on the basis of the Tuesday's primaries and newly released results from last Saturday's Washington caucuses. Additional delegates still to be allocated from his new victories were certain to add to his lead.

McCain's victory in Virginia was a relatively close one, the result of an outpouring of religious conservatives who backed Mike Huckabee.

The AP count showed McCain with 821 delegates. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who dropped out of the race last week, had 288. Huckabee had 241 and Texas Rep. Ron Paul had 14.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.