Washington, May 11

Democrat hopeful Bernie Sanders won the West Virginia state primary on Tuesday night against front-runner Hillary Clinton.

The win comes one week after the Vermont senator prevailed in Indiana's Democratic primary and two weeks after Clinton dominated a series of contests in the northeastern US, NBC News reported.

Democrats also voted on Tuesday in a presidential "beauty contest" in Nebraska, although the delegates from that state were all previously assigned during a March 5 caucus. In that contest, Sanders won 15 pledged delegates, compared to 10 for Clinton.

"With this outcome, we now have won primaries and caucuses in 19 states," Sanders said in a statement. "We are in this campaign to win the Democratic nomination and we're going to stay in the race until the last vote is cast."

Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump, whose last remaining competitors exited the race after Trump's victory in Indiana last week, also won in West Virginia on Tuesday, easily. 

Trump also rolled to victory in Nebraska, where 36 delegates were at stake.

According to analysts, Sanders, long viewed as the front runner to win in the Mountain State, benefited from Clinton's mis-steps when speaking about the coal industry in mining-heavy West Virginia. 

While Clinton had proposed programmes to help coal workers laid off due to a changing energy industry, she was haunted by her statement during a CNN town hall in March that "we're going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business".

So far, Sanders has clinched a total of 1,467 votes while Clinton is still leading the Democrat race with 2,238.