Hillary Clinton has fallen behind Barak Obama in the race for the Democrat's White House nomination in Texas but still had reason for optimism after her best month of fundraising to date.
The former First Lady said she raised $35 million dollars in February despite failing to win any contest since Super Tuesday.
But the Obama campaign promised new record numbers this month, which could approach the $50 million according to reports.
The strong financial support has led to campaign adverts saturating the airwaves in Texas and Ohio, two of the states where crucial contests take place next Tuesday.
In Texas, the Clinton campaign continued to highlight the dangers America faced and insisted the 60-year-old New York senator was ready to face a crisis from "day one".
Mr Obama, who was on the campaign trail in Houston, Texas, said his rival was playing on peoples' fears "to scare up votes".
But earlier he told reporters he was not being complacent now he has emerged as the party's front-runner.
Mrs Clinton has lost 11 straight state contests and having seen a massive lead in Texas, on of the most crucial battlegrounds, dwindle since campaigning started, got more bad news today.
A Reuters/C-SPAN/Houston Chronicle poll showed Barack Obama had taken a slight lead and had almost pulled even in Ohio another key state. Failure to win both ststes would likely damage her faltering campaign fatally.
Mr Obama has said that if he leads Mrs Clinton by 100-150 pledged delegates after the results come in on "Mini Super Tuesday" , he would go to Democrats nomination convention with the most delegates, meaning "we should be the nominee".
An Associated Press estimate of the delegate numbers so far shows Mr Obama leading 1,378 to 1,276, with 2,025 needed to secure the party's nomination at the national convention this summer.
But former President Bill Clinton told his wife's supporters in Smithfield, Rhode Island, that if she could won that state, Ohio and Texas, "she'll be on her way to the White House". A total of 370 delegates are up for grabs on Tuesday, with Vermont also going to the polls.
PA