Hillary Clinton faces pressure to win in primaries

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton takes a selfie with campaign supporters after her address at a campaign rally at La Gala on Tuesday in Bowling Green, Kentucky. (Photo: AFP)

Ms Clinton is under pressure to do well in Democratic nominating contests in Kentucky and Oregon on Tuesday so she can turn her attention to the general election and the mounting attacks on her by Republican candidate Donald Trump.

The continued presence in the race of Mr Bernie Sanders — who remains a long-shot to upset Ms Clinton and win the Democratic nomination — is prompting concerns among Ms Clinton allies that he will damage her ability to take on Mr Trump and hurt the Democrat in the fall.

But Mr Sanders supporters shrug off that worry, arguing that Mr Trump is such a flawed candidate that Ms Clinton will easily dispatch with him if she faces him in the November 8 election.

“Either way we’re going to get a Democratic president,” Ms Alisha Liedtke, 28, a Sanders supporter from Ellensburg, Washington.

Allies of Ms Clinton have held back from overt calls for Sanders to exit the race. Moves by her campaign to try to push him out could risk angering Democratic voters and backfire.

So Ms Clinton must continue her primary fight in Kentucky and Oregon, where analysts predict she will have a hard time winning. The Democratic race is unlikely to wrap up before California, New Jersey and several other states vote on June 7.

Presidential primaries in Oregon and Kentucky on Tuesday will give Ms Clinton a chance to bolster her almost insurmountable delegate lead over Democratic rival Bernie Sanders, who has vowed to slog on despite long odds.

Mr Sanders is gunning for victory in the Bluegrass State, building on his win last week in neighbouring West Virginia as he battles to keep his long-shot nomination bid alive.

The north-west state of Oregon on Tuesday also holds its Democratic and Republican primaries, where limited polling has indicated Ms Clinton is ahead.

Mr Sanders, however, leads in Kentucky.

Ms Clinton sees Kentucky as an opportunity to appeal to a demographic that has consistently snubbed her: working-class white men.

No Democratic presidential candidate has won in the state since 1980 except for her husband Bill Clinton.

On Sunday the former first lady appeared to indicate he would play a role in her administration if she were elected, promising to put him “in charge of revitalising the economy.”

And during a stop Monday at a diner in Paducah, a city in southwestern Kentucky, she reasserted that he would be her ally in office.

Ms Clinton used the rally to pummel the “risky and dangerous” Trump, suggesting he is unqualified to handle tough foreign policy decisions.