NEW YORK – Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton vowed to remain in the presidential race until the last primaries next month but hinted that the protracted contest with rival Barack Obama would end shortly thereafter.

"You don't walk off the court before the buzzer sounds," Mrs. Clinton said Wednesday on CNN, a day after her resounding victory in West Virginia. "You never know, you might get a three-point shot at the end."

Mrs. Clinton also said that she shouldn't have suggested in a newspaper interview that Barack Obama was having trouble winning over "hardworking ... white Americans."

Told that a top black supporter, Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., had called the remark "the dumbest thing you could have possibly said," Mrs. Clinton said, "Well, he's probably right."

She said some voters may be discriminating against Mr. Obama because he is black but that there are probably an equal number voting against her because she's a woman.