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NEW YORK (CBS/AP) ― Hillary Rodham Clinton will admit Tuesday night that Barack Obama has the delegates to secure the Democratic nomination, campaign officials said.

A senior Clinton campaign official confirms to CBS News that Clinton will "acknowledge but not concede" the race tonight. The official says "she has no plans to concede the race tonight."

The Clinton campaign has released a statement saying "Senator Clinton will not concede the nomination this evening." Campaign Chairman Terry McAuliffe told CNN this morning that Obama "doesn't have the numbers today, and until someone has the numbers the race goes on."

Obama remains less than 40 delegates shy of clinching the nomination, but he is widely expected to make up the difference Tuesday with superdelegate support and votes in South Dakota and Montana. Once he reaches the magic number of 2,118, Clinton will acknowledge that he has secured the necessary delegates to be the nominee.

The AP did say that the former first lady will stop short of formally suspending or ending her race in her speech in New York City. She will pledge to continue to speak out on issues like health care. But for all intents and purposes, two senior officials said, the campaign is over.
 
Most campaign staff will be let go and will be paid through June 15, said the officials who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to divulge her plans.
 
According to the AP, the advisers said Clinton has made a strategic decision to not formally end her campaign, giving her leverage to negotiate with Obama on various matters including a possible vice presidential nomination for her. She also wants to press him on issues he should focus on in the fall, such as health care.
 
Universal health care, Clinton's signature issue as first lady in the 1990s, was a point of dispute between Obama and the New York senator during their epic nomination fight.

The move follows the final primaries in South Dakota and Montana and word that Sen. Barack Obama is expected to reap a super delegate harvest this week.

Sources told CBS News that most of the 17 uncommitted super delegates from the Senate are expected to endorse Obama shortly, along with at least a dozen House members. 

Clinton has no events scheduled after Tuesday and has told campaign staffers to stand down.

However, in South Dakota on Monday, she was still acting like she was in it to win it. "We're slightly behind in the delegates, but we're going to make our case to all the delegates as to who would be the best president," she said. 

Perhaps the most telling sign of what's to come tonight came from the candidate's husband. "This may be the last day I'm ever involved in a campaign of this kind," former President Clinton said. The Clinton campaign said later, however, that he was talking about the primaries only.

Sen. Obama said he spoke only briefly on the phone to Clinton Sunday night to congratulate her on her win in Puerto Rico and he said he emphasized to her what an extraordinary race she'd run.

"I told her once the dust settled, I was looking forward to meeting with her at a time and a place of her choosing. We still got two more contests to go and I am sure that there will be further conversations after Tuesday," Obama said.

While Democrats are trying to end their nomination battle, tonight John McCain is kicking off his general election campaign with a prime time speech in New Orleans where he's expected to say Obama's theme of change is nothing compared to his history of reform.

(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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