WASHINGTON – A bullish US Senator John McCain said he was confident Republicans will tap him to run for president after he won a string of states in Tuesday’s across-the-nation primaries.

"We still have a ways to go, but we’re much closer to the victory we’ve worked so hard to achieve," McCain, 71, told cheering supporters in his home state of Arizona. "I am confident we will get there."

McCain, a Vietnam War veteran who took an unpopular stand by backing last year’s US troop build up in Iraq, won Republican polls in at least seven states Tuesday and widened his lead in the party’s nomination race over rivals Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee.

If elected in the November general election, McCain would become the oldest president to take office. After his campaign slumped last year, he pulled of a major comeback in early primaries in January.

"And although I’ve never minded the role of the underdog … tonight I think we must get used to the idea that we are the Republican Party front-runner for the nomination," McCain said Tuesday. "And I don’t really mind it one bit."

[Copyright dpa 2008]

Subject: Super Tuesday, US elections