DELAWARE RESULTS Democrats 196 of 196 precincts reporting Gore 57% Bradley 40% LaRouche 3% Percentages will not necessarily add to 100.

Gore won comfortably in a primary that was only a popularity contest, a state-run straw poll.

The vice president captured 57 percent of the vote, the former senator from New Jersey, 40 percent.

Gore, taking a day off in Washington, telephoned a union leader his thanks for the victory. "He said we took him over the top," said Mike Begatto, executive director of the AFL-CIO Public Employees Council.

"Al Gore and the Gore campaign appreciate the support of the people of Delaware today," said spokesman Chris Lehane. "We hope to also earn that support caucus day."

That will be March 27, when Delaware Democrats begin choosing their 22 nominating delegates. The state scheduled its primary near the start of the campaign season in an effort to gain influence, but Democrats could not select delegates this soon without violating party rules.

By the time they do, after the major state primaries earlier in March, the contest may be settled.

With the candidates bypassing the state, the primary vote was light, about 5 percent of registered voters.

Their verdict:

Gore, 6,349 or 57 percent.

Bradley, 4,465 or 40 percent.

Perennial fringe candidate Lyndon H. LaRouche got the rest.

Gore scored heavily with voters who said they were looking for experience. One in four said that was the quality they wanted in a candidate, and the vice president got 9 out of 10 of their votes, according to a Voter News Service poll.

VNS, a consortium of The Associated Press and the major television networks, interviewed voters leaving their polling places.

Those interviews also showed that the vice president won overwhemlingly among voters from union households.

"If anyone should get the credit for this Gore win today, it should be the AFL-CIO," said Chris Coons, a Gore organizer.

Benjamin J. Matwey, Bradley's volunteer chairman, said the low turnout hurt his candidate. But he said "they won, we lost, there's no spin on it."

Delaware was Gore's third straight victory, two by landslide margins. Gore won the New Hampshire primary last Tuesday with a 4-point edge on Bradley.

Neither Gore nor Bradley made a stop in Delaware, and the volunteers who campaigned there did it without national help. The candidates had said they would stay away, wary of friction with New Hampshire, when the leadoff primary state was defending its status against calendar encroachment.

Gore won the Iowa caucuses with a margin of nearly 2-to-1 over Bradley, and beat him 50 percent to 46 percent in New Hampshire. Under Democratic rules, only those starting-point states could choose delegates before March 7.

The Republicans have no such restriction. George W. Bush and Steve Forbes are campaigning for Delaware's GOP primary on Tuesday. Sen. John McCain, the big winner in New Hampshire, skipped it to aim at later targets.

To avoid a conflict with New Hampshire, which demands a full week to itself, the Republicans opted out of the state-run primary on Saturday to vote in one of their own three days later. The contest offers 12 nominating votes, a pittance in the national campaign, but a stake to go with the win-lose rating Delaware will deliver.

Forbes' self-financed campaign has been shaken by defeat in Iowa and a far-back third place in New Hampshire. He rolled around the second smallest state on a bus tour, saying the McCain victory in New Hampshire proved there would be no coronation of Bush. "There's nothing inevitable now," he said.

Bush campaigned in Dover on Thursday and planned to return Monday. He criticized the absent McCain, saying, "You don't see me skipping anything," he said. McCain's strategy is to concentrate on campaigning for South Carolina primary Feb. 19.

Gore and Bradley flew from New Hampshire into what they both see as a national campaign now, both with stops in New York and then California before their weekend break.

Bradley sought support one state away, in College Park, Md., on Friday.

He said Gore stands for the old politics, for a win-by-any means kind of campaigning. "It's relentlessly negative, attack a day, charge a day," he said. Then he flew home to New Jersey for a brief break.

Matwey said his volunteer operation was on its own, short of money, lacking even for campaign literature. He said his workers paid for their own "Bradley 2000" buttons, and he brought back some campaign flyers after a stint in New Hampshire.

Coons, the Gore campaign leader, said it was hard to organize for the primary without support, not even a wink or a nod, from the national campaign.

In staying out, Lehane said, the national organization "respected the Democratic National Commitee rules."

Still, the Delaware primary left its imprint on the 2000 campaign. Because the state tried to get in early, New Hampshire moved up its date and held the earliest primary ever. That lead Iowa to move, up, too, so the voting began earlier than ever before.