Forbes had 73 delegates and Buchanan 63.

Dole's satisfaction at the election results came in the face of three new national surveys showing Clinton with double-digit leads in head-to-head matchups. They also showed Dole would suffer if Ross Perot mounted another independent candidacy.

In these new surveys--and exit polling of yesterday's GOP voters--half the respondents also said Dole did not have new ideas.

"What I make of those is that once we get a nominee and he is out there focusing on Bill Clinton instead of getting beat up in primaries every day then we will turn this around," Dole told the AP.

Buchanan abruptly canceled an evening news conference at which he was supposed to react to the results. Earlier, he said: "We are going to go all the way and do battle for the party."

Clinton had no major opposition in Democratic balloting and was closing in on mathematically clinching renomination.

Common to the GOP electorate in all seven states was a jaundiced view of the federal government. Asked how often they trusted Washington to do what's right, only a fifth said most of the time. Six in 10 said sometimes, and one in 10 said never. Taxes and the deficit were the most important issues, according to voter surveys by Voter News Service, a consortium of the AP and the television networks.

In the week ahead, Dole said he would focus squarely on the Democratic incumbent--"Veto Bill"--and his rejection of GOP plans to balance the budget, cut taxes for families and investors, and reform welfare.

So bored were many Republicans with the predictable primaries that they had moved on to speculating whom Dole should pick for a running mate.

Gingrich, for example, said retired gen. Colin L. Powell was a top prospect, ignoring daily protests from Buchanan because Powell supports abortion rights. Gingrich also cited Michigan Gov. John Engler and California Attorney General Dan Lungren as "perfect examples of the kind of people who I think would be terrific."

Dole wouldn't name names, saying, "The slate is wide open."

But not too soon to take aim at Clinton.

He said his Midwest mission would be to remind voters they never received the balanced budget, middle class tax cut and welfare reform that candidate Clinton promised in 1992. In contrast, Dole pledged to quickly deliver those items and more, promising to eliminate several Cabinet agencies and shift power wholesale from Washington to the states.

"These may not be new ideas--they might have been around for a while, but they are good ideas," Dole said