By Marie Horrigan, CQ Staff

Barack Obama won Wyoming’s Democratic presidential caucuses Saturday amid record turnout, defeating Hillary Rodham Clinton after her strong performance in Tuesday’s contests and continuing the neck-and-neck race for the nomination.

Given the contest’s unsettled nature, Wyoming Democrats found themselves in an unusual position: central players in the presidential nominating process. Both candidates and their surrogates made multiple trips to Wyoming and Obama’s campaign set up four field offices in the state while Clinton set up offices in Cheyenne and Casper.

With final results in from all 23 counties, Obama won the contest with 5,378 votes to 3,311 votes for Clinton, 61 percent to 38 percent. Obama won 15 counties, Clinton six; they tied in two counties.

Nearly 9,000 Democrats participated in the contest, around 14 percent of registered Democrats. The highest turnout for previous presidential caucuses peaked at around 3 percent, according to Bill Luckett, spokesman for the party. Just 675 people participated in the Wyoming Democratic presidential caucuses in 2004.

“As is the story in so many other states, we saw record-shattering turnout,” Luckett said.

Clinton’s wins Tuesday in Ohio and Texas buoyed her campaign, but Obama maintained the lead in the delegate count heading into the Wyoming caucus. Twelve pledged delegates were up for grabs in Wyoming on Saturday: Obama won seven and Clinton won five, according to the Associated Press. Clinton has 1,226 pledged delegates and Obama has 1,368 pledged delegates, by the AP’s count. Candidates need 2,025 delegates to win the nomination.

The Clinton campaign spun the results as a triumph over expectations. “We are thrilled with this near split in delegates,” Campaign Manager Maggie Williams said in a written statement. She added: “Although the Obama campaign predicted victory in Wyoming weeks ago, we worked hard to present Senator Clinton’s vision to the caucus-goers and we thank them for turning out today.”

In a conference call with reporters, Obama Campaign Manager David Plouffe said the results were a big win for them, especially given Clinton’s “very furious campaigning.” Plouffe said that Obama’s win Saturday indicated his strong performance throughout the Mountain West. “This is again evidence that Senator Obama is going to be able to put more states in play,” he said.

Fewer than 700 pledged delegates remain in play through the end of the primary season, which concludes June 3 with primaries in Montana and South Dakota. Even if either Clinton or Obama won all the pledged delegates through the end of the nominating calendar it would not be enough to push them over the 2,024 delegate threshold needed to secure the nomination. That means control over the contest rests with the superdelegates, 796 party leaders and elected officials who are not pledged to any candidate, though some have made endorsements. According to the AP, Clinton leads in superdelegate endorsements, 242 to Obama’s 210.