DES MOINES, Iowa -- Barack Obama is inching ever closer to locking up the Democratic presidential nomination after winning the Oregon primary, but also suffering another resounding loss to Hillary Rodham Clinton, this time in Kentucky.

Results

Clinton beat Obama by 35 percentage points in Kentucky, after trouncing him by 41 percentage points in West Virginia last week, and has won five of the last seven primaries.

With 88 percent of the vote counted in Oregon, Obama was winning by a 58-42 percent margin.

The split decision left Obama fewer than 70 delegates from the 2,026 needed to secure the nomination.

Clinton won at least 56 delegates in the two states and Obama won at least 43, according to an analysis of election returns by The Associated Press. All the delegates from Kentucky were awarded, but there were still four to be allocated in Oregon. A total of 103 were at stake in the two states.

Obama had a total of 1,961 delegates, including endorsements from party and elected officials known as superdelegates. Clinton had 1,779 delegates, according to the latest tally by the AP.

Without quite declaring total victory, Obama held a celebration rally Tuesday night in Des Moines, Iowa, and heaped praise on Clinton's accomplishments and tenacity.

"We have had our disagreements during this campaign, but we all admire her courage, her commitment and her perseverance," Obama said in the state that handed him his first victory in the battle for the nomination. "No matter how this primary ends, Sen. Clinton has shattered myths and broken barriers and changed the America in which my daughters and yours will come of age."

He then called for party unity, even as he reached out to disaffected Republicans and independents.

"You are Democrats who are tired of being divided, Republicans who no longer recognize the party that runs Washington, independents who are hungry for change," he said, speaking to a crowd on the grounds of the Iowa Capitol in Des Moines as well as the millions around the country who will elect the nation's 44th president in November.

As he nears the Democratic prize, Obama has been concentrating his campaign more and more on John McCain, the Republican nominee-in-waiting, rather than on Clinton.

But Clinton insists she still sees a path to the nomination by winning over the party leaders and elected officials known as superdelegates, whose support will be needed for either candidate to clinch the nomination.

"Neither Sen. Obama nor I will have reached that magic number when the voting ends on June 3," she said Tuesday night in Kentucky. "And so, our party will have a tough choice to make -- who's ready to lead our party at the top of our ticket, who is ready to defeat Sen. McCain in the swing states and among swing voters?"

She also continued to insist that Michigan and Florida Democrats deserve to have their votes counted, a reference to the lingering controversy surrounding primaries in both states held in defiance of Democratic National Committee rules.

Obama also has the distinction of raising more than $250 million to date in his campaign. After raising $31 million in April, he said he still has $37 million in the bank. Compared with the Clinton campaign, which is nearly $20 million in debt, the Obama campaign is primed to take on McCain and his $22 million war chest.

On the bright side for Clinton, her campaign's $22 million haul in April included $10 million raised in the two days after her Pennsylvania primary victory, making it her second-best fundraising month of the campaign.

Clinton and Obama both planned lunchtime campaign appearances in Florida on Wednesday and Clinton once again underscored the need for Democratic unity in November.

"While we continue to go toe to toe for this nomination, we do see eye to eye when it comes to uniting our party to elect a Democratic president this fall," she said Tuesday evening.