St. Louis ? With two wins in his column, John Kerry basked in the front-runner’s glow Wednesday with new money and support from leading Democrats, while other candidates fanned out to Missouri, South Carolina and elsewhere.

The Massachusetts senator, fresh off strong victories in New Hampshire and Iowa, sought to stake his claim in delegate-rich Missouri as he worked to quickly build a muscular effort in six other states with primaries and caucuses Feb. 3.

“The test of running for president is a long one, and it’s a tough one,” said Kerry, whose rivals had all but written him off a month ago. “I expect it to be tough all the way.”

Here in Missouri and in six other states, Kerry began filling the airwaves with biographical commercials, hoping to introduce himself to a new audience of voters. As his rivals pick and choose the states to compete in, Kerry’s new fund-raising boom gives him a key advantage over a month ago when he mortgaged his home to keep his campaign alive.

The week before the Iowa caucuses, contributions to Kerry climbed 40 percent, compared with an average week in December. The week between the caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, a campaign spokeswoman said, he raised $1.1 million through the Internet, a marked increase over his previous fund-raising.

As the Democratic candidates dispersed across the country Wednesday, searching for support in South Carolina and Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona, Howard Dean retreated to Vermont.

While Dean showed little concern about whether he won any of the seven contests at stake next Tuesday, saying his campaign was girding for a long fight, his rivals barnstormed across the South and the Midwest on Wednesday in hopes of keeping their campaigns alive.

Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina traveled from South Carolina to Oklahoma to Missouri, visiting college campuses and a Baptist church. While Edwards believes he must win South Carolina to stay in the race, the campaign also wants to make a respectable showing in the other big electoral prizes Tuesday.

Democratic presidential hopeful the Rev. Al Sharpton tries on a hard hat during a campaign stop at the Construction Prep Center in Wellston, Mo. The center, visited Wednesday by Sharpton, was constructed, in part, because of the efforts of Sharpton protesting a lack of minority representation in the construction improvement contracts.

Running on what his campaign calls “the Iowa boomlet,” he has raised more than $500,000 over the Internet since taking second in the Iowa caucuses last week, his aides said. Internet fund-raising had been Dean’s domain.

But Edwards got some disappointing news: South Carolina’s most powerful black politician, Rep. Jim Clyburn, endorsed Kerry. Clyburn, who initially backed Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri, is considered an important prize on the road to winning the Palmetto State.

Kerry also picked up endorsements in St. Louis from former Missouri Sens. Jean Carnahan and Tom Eagleton and St. Louis Mayor Frances Slay. Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack and his wife, Christie, flew in for the event, too, with the governor officially signing off on Kerry’s candidacy after remaining neutral during the Iowa caucuses.

Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, who made four campaign stops in three states on Wednesday, attempted to cast his statistical tie for third in New Hampshire as a resounding victory for a first-time candidate. Because he won several hundred more votes than Edwards, Clark told supporters that he had “won the non-New England, non-favorite son part of that race.”

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who did not compete in Iowa or New Hampshire, has been aggressively courting black votes in South Carolina, and Wednesday he visited Missouri.