Ohio Democrats again came through for a Clinton - Hillary, this time around - in awarding her a roughly 57 percent to 43 percent win over Bernie Sanders in Tuesday's presidential primary.

Ohio Democrats again came through for a Clinton� Hillary, this time around� in awarding her a roughly56 percent to 43 percentwin over Bernie Sanders in the presidential primary today.

Clinton, combined with her husband, former President Bill Clinton, ran her family's political record in Ohio to perfect 6-0 as she continued to pad her delegate lead over the socialist U.S. senator from Vermont.

"We are moving closer to securing the Democratic Party nomination and winning this election in November," Clinton said in West Palm Beach, Fla.

With 97 percentof Ohio precincts counted tonight, Clinton led Sanders by about 650,000 to 492,000 votes. She was running up margins in Ohio's big cities, reflecting her strength with African American voters.

Dusting off remnants of her Ohio organization and reviving support from her 2008 primary win, when she defeated Barack Obama 54 percent to 44 percent, Clinton showed strength. Polls of Ohio had given her an average 8 percentage point lead.

She appeared to be in position to capture about 37 more delegates than Sanders among the state's allotment of 143 pledged delegates. Ohio also will send 17 unpledged delegates to the convention in Philadelphia in July.

The former secretary of state and U.S. senator also won in Florida and North Carolina today.Clinton held a slight lead in Illinois tonight, while Sanders was slightly up in Missouri.

With voters in Ohio and four other states casting their ballots today, the race for the Democratic nomination reached the halfway-point. Fifty percent of the 2,950 pledged delegates now have been awarded. Clinton retained her huge lead in "super-delegates," who are free to vote for the candidate of their choice, and appears enroute to being her party's nominee.

Clinton's husband, Bill, who campaigned around Ohio for the former first lady in recent days, also won two sets of Democratic primaries and general elections in Ohio, edging incumbent Republican George H. W. Bush in 1992 and defeating Republican Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas in 1996.

Aaron Pickrell, the Clinton campaign's senior adviser in Ohio, said, "It was a good night. It�s a validation of Hillary Clinton's messaging and the fact Ohioans know her. They know her and President Clinton and they trust them."

Pickrell, who ran former Gov. Ted Strickland's 2006 and 2010 campaigns and was state director of Obama's 2008 campaign, believes GOP frontrunner Donald Trump ultimately will win the Republican nomination. Clinton is "in a strong position to run well here in the fall," regardless of the GOP nominee, he said.

Ohio Democratic Party Chairman David Pepper said Clinton "dug in roots in 2008 and formed a base of support" that grew into her win over Sanders.

Democrats and independents who voted anti-Trump Republican on Tuesday "will come home" this fall to help Clinton, he said.

The third candidate in the Democratic presidential field in Ohio, California entrepreneurRoque "Rocky" De La Fuente, received about 1 percent of the vote.

Reflecting a lesson learned from the populist Sanders' economic pitch to blue-collar voters in Michigan, where he won in an upset on March 8, Clinton focused on addressing economic insecurity in Ohio.

Sanders tried a repeat of his Michigan messaging, but it did not play as well in Ohio with Clinton moving to counter him and voter familiarity with the family name.

Clinton talked of forging a new economy to lift the wages and job security of the middle class and talked tougher about opposing trade deals that would export Ohio jobs. "I will have your backs," she pledged to Ohioans.

Sanders, who is adamantly opposed to any trade deals and favored-nation trade status for China, swatted back at Clinton, saying she was a late convert to opposing the Trans Pacific Partnership trade pact after earlier supporting the measure.

But largely, Sanders' message to Ohio Democrats was the same he rolled out nationally that made Clinton's one-time seeming stroll to the nomination more of a climb.

He talked of snatching political influence and a piece of economic gains from billionaires, of a transfer of wealth to benefit the wages of the working class. He pledged free tuition at public universities, Medicare-like universal health care coverage and a reconfiguration of the justice system while addressing institutional racism.

Sanders' Ohio campaign officials could not be reached for comment tonight.

rludlow@dispatch.com

@RandyLudlow