WASHINGTON — In West Virginia today, Senator Clinton is poised for one of her most lopsided victories, but it comes at a time when the voice of Democratic primary voters arguably matters the least to her chances of overtaking Senator Obama.

A poll released yesterday showed the New York senator 36 points ahead of Mr. Obama in the Mountain State, an edge that would represent her widest margin of victory in any state but Arkansas, where she served as first lady for more than a decade.

The expected rout is likely too late for Mrs. Clinton, however, as party leaders flock to Mr. Obama and declare the race for the Democratic nomination all but finished.

Seeking to divert attention from the results in West Virginia, Mr. Obama has largely written off the state and is turning his focus to a general election matchup with Senator McCain.

The Illinois senator made a single, token appearance in the state yesterday, delivering a speech on veterans’ issues and mentioning today’s primary as little more than an afterthought.

“There is an election here tomorrow,” Mr. Obama said. “I’m honored that some of you will support me, and I understand that many more here in West Virginia will probably support Senator Clinton.”

He played down expectations even further at a news conference later, noting that President Clinton had raised the possibility that his wife would win by an 80%-20% margin.

Campaigning in Charleston, Mrs. Clinton made the case that she had made successfully in Ohio and Pennsylvania — that a win in West Virginia was key to a Democrat’s hopes for victory in the general election. “It’s a fact that Democrats don’t get elected unless West Virginia votes for you,” she said, noting that no Democrat had won the White House without the state since 1916.

In the West Virginia poll released yesterday by Suffolk University, Mrs. Clinton led, 60% to 24%. A survey last week by the American Research Group showed an even wider margin, with Mrs. Clinton up by 43%.

Analysts say the demographics of the state play to the former first lady’s strengths, with a high population of working-class white voters and one of the nation’s lowest percentages of African-Americans. Mrs. Clinton’s focus on a message of economic populism in recent weeks, along with the controversy surrounding Mr. Obama and his former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright Jr., have likely added to her advantage, the director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center, David Paleologos, said. “The predisposed dynamics were the same, but the margins have been accelerated by the divide,” he said.

Mrs. Clinton maintains a similarly wide lead in Kentucky, which votes next week, and she also is heavily favored in Puerto Rico, which holds a primary June 3. Mr. Obama is favored in the Oregon primary, also next week. A poll of Kentucky voters released yesterday showed Mrs. Clinton ahead, 58% to 31%, in a state with similar demographics to West Virginia.

Her leads are so large that Mr. Paleologos predicted she would win even if she had dropped out of the race last week after a narrow win in Indiana and a decisive loss in North Carolina. For Mr. Obama, a defeat today may not preferable, but losing an uncontested election “would be embarrassing,” Mr. Paleologos said.

The candidates’ schedules for this week offer another indication of their divergent paths. While Mrs. Clinton is holding an election night party in West Virginia and will then likely travel to Kentucky and Oregon, which vote next week, Mr. Obama will campaign today in Missouri, a general election swing state. He also is planning stops over the next two weeks in Florida and Michigan, two states that could be key in November and where he did not campaign during the primary because the Democratic National Committee stripped their delegates to the party convention.

Mrs. Clinton has rebuffed calls from some party leaders to exit the race, and she appears to be hoping that blowout victories in West Virginia and Kentucky will boost her argument to superdelegates that she is the better general election candidate. But those wins alone will not suffice. Mr. Obama’s campaign expects that he will pick up enough delegates today and next Tuesday in Kentucky and Oregon to clinch a majority of pledged delegates, meaning Mrs. Clinton would need the vast majority of superdelegates to swing the nomination to her. She must also get the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee to reinstate the Florida and Michigan delegations when it meets on May 31 if she is to have any chance.

Party leaders, meanwhile, have begun rallying around Mr. Obama. He has picked up more than a dozen superdelegates in recent days, including four yesterday, and for the first time he has overtaken Mrs. Clinton’s long-standing lead among those officials who have an automatic vote at the convention in August.