Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney won the Nevada caucuses on Saturday. With 92 per cent of caucus sites reporting, Clinton led the Democratic vote with 51 per cent over Barrack Obama, who had 45 per cent of the vote.

Mitt Romney had secured 51 per cent of the Republican vote, with 98 per cent of caucus sites reporting their results. John McCain and Ron Paul - who has generated a small, but loyal following for his hands-off economic policies and opposition to the war in Iraq - were tied for second place with 13 per cent of the vote, according to numbers reported by the state's Republican Party.

However, caucus goers at the casino sites did not appear to follow the union's lead, with Clinton winning at seven of the nine meetings on the Las Vegas Strip, the Las Vegas Sun newspaper reported online.

In Las Vegas many members of the Culinary Workers Union were eligible to attend special caucus sites in the casinos that line the famed Strip, and Clinton supporters had argued against it in a failed legal challenge ahead of the vote.

The response of Hispanic voters in the state was being closely watched ahead of upcoming contests in California, New York and New Jersey, which also have large Hispanic populations.

On the Republican side, Romney, 60, campaigned hard in the western state, counting on his appeal to Mormon voters. Romney won the Michigan primary Tuesday and leads the candidates in the number of delegates to the Republican nominating convention in September, when the party will officially chose its candidate.

"If you can win those two states, Michigan and Nevada, it would mean you'd put together quite a coalition and have been able to make the kind of inroads you have to make to take the White House," he said of his victory.

The focus later on Saturday will shift to the centre-right Republicans in South Carolina, the first southern state in the state- by-state battle for delegates to national political conventions in August and September.

With plummeting employment rates, the home mortgage crisis and drooping construction figures, voters in both South Carolina and Nevada named the economy as their number one issue in the vote, media reports said. The presidential elections are November 4.