Washington, Aug 12 : Supporters of US Senator Hillary Clinton have claimed that she could have won the Democratic presidential nomination had John Edwards not lied about his adulterous relationship with Rielle Hunter.

They said that Edwards’ lie over his extra-marital affair with Rielle had “lasting effects” because it enabled him to stay in the race at a crucial time, emerging second after Barack Obama in Iowa.

The Iowa caucuses, which kicked off the nomination process in January, saw Hillary finish third, just behind second-placed Edwards and the victorious Barack Obama. Although she staged a comeback a few days later in New Hampshire, her campaign never properly recovered its former poise and momentum.

Howard Wolfson, her former communications director, said that without Edwards complicating the contest “we would have won Iowa, and Clinton today would therefore have been the nominee”.

“Our voters and Edwards''s voters were the same people. They were older, pro-union. Not all, but maybe two-thirds of them, would have been for us and we would have barely beaten Obama,” timesonline. com quoted him as saying.

Another leading Clinton campaign backer James Carville, said: “My instinct tells me that she probably would have done better had Senator Edwards not been on the ballot in Iowa, but that wasn''t the circumstances at the time.”

According to the report, although Obama''s campaign is said to dispute this analysis, pointing out that his biggest harvest of votes came shortly after Edwards dropped out at the end of January, “it is in no mood to pick a public fight with the Clinton camp”. (ANI)