Howard Dean on Sunday said he expected either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton to have won the presidential nomination before the Democratic convention in August, as the chairman of the party sought to play down fears that the increasingly bitter race would drag on until late summer.

“It’s pretty likely that somebody is going to come out on top,” Mr Dean said in an interview on ABC’s This Week programme. Mr Dean’s comments follow Mr Obama’s comfortable win in the small Wyoming caucuses on Saturday night, after Mrs Clinton breathed fresh life into her campaign last week by winning in the key states of Ohio and Texas.