WASHINGTON — In a setback for Hillary Clinton’s presidential hopes, Democratic Party officials on Saturday cut by half the number of delegates she was hoping to receive from disputed primary elections in Florida and Michigan.

After an all-day meeting, punctuated by applause but mostly jeers from a raucous audience, the party’s rules and bylaws committee decided that the Florida and Michigan delegates could attend the party’s convention this August, but that each delegate would carry only half a vote.

The resolution increased the number of delegates needed to clinch the nomination to 2,118, leaving Obama just 66 delegates away from the majority needed to secure the nomination.

Clinton — who is spending the weekend in Puerto Rico ahead of its primary today — trails Barack Obama by about 200 delegates in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, and she had been hoping to make up some of that gap by persuading party officials to restore delegates from the two states, which Clinton won.

The deal was reached after committee members deliberated for nine hours, including three in which they met privately and argued fiercely over their eventual deal, according to several people inside. They voted 19-8 — 13 members had endorsed Clinton for president — in front of a raucous hotel ballroom that frequently interrupted proceedings and reflected deep divisions within the party.

“How can you call yourselves Democrats if you don’t count the vote?” one of the many hecklers in the audience yelled loudly and repeatedly before being escorted out by security. “This is not the Democratic Party!”

One woman, wearing a blue “Team Hillary” shirt, shoved a man wearing a small Obama button on his lapel. Another woman in a white Clinton shirt hung her head in her hands.

“That was a crime!” a man shouted. “McCain in ’08! McCain in ’08!” a woman yelled from the back of the room. “No-bama! No-bama!”

Clinton won the January primaries in Michigan and Florida, but after Democratic officials stripped them of their delegates for ignoring party scheduling rules and holding the elections too early in the year.

Under the plan approved Saturday, Clinton will gain 19 delegates above Obama’s take from Florida. Had the delegation been seated with full voting power, Clinton would have netted 38 delegates. Clinton also will eat into Obama’s lead under the committee plan for seating 157 delegates from Michigan. But with Obama poised to claim victory in the nomination battle, the delegates Clinton gained from those two states are well short of what Clinton needed to make up the gap.

There are three primaries left in the contest — Puerto Rico, then Montana and South Dakota on Tuesday. Obama will not clinch the nomination this weekend, barring a barrage of superdelegates today.

Clinton and her supporters wanted the Michigan and Florida delegations fully restored, according to January primaries that she won. But those contests were not recognized by the party because they were held too early, and both candidates agreed at the time they would not count.

But as Clinton tried to catch up to Obama’s delegate lead, she has argued that the votes of the 2.3 million people who participated in the elections must be recognized.

What will Clinton do?

Clinton’s reaction to the committee decision is an important question.

A senior Clinton adviser, speaking on the condition of anonymity about internal campaign decisions, said the decision could be used to help her raise campaign donations for a scaled-down campaign that might focus on a signature issue — such as health care reform — rather than a traditional fight for the nomination.

The advisers said no decisions had been made, and it was possible that Clinton would bow out once Obama goes over the top.

If she accepts the panel’s decision, the Democratic race could end quickly after the final primary elections are held Tuesday. But if Clinton chooses to fight the panel’s decision as far as the convention in August, the party faces the potential of a split in its ranks that could make it hard to unify against Republican John McCain.

One possible clue to Clinton’s intentions came from Harold Ickes, a top Clinton campaign strategist who serves on the rules committee. He fiercely protested the settlement reached for Michigan, leaving open the possibility that Clinton might pursue an appeal through the summer.

“Behind all the rhetoric during the meeting about democracy and on and on and on, I am stunned that we have the gall and the chutzpah to substitute our judgment for 600,000 (Michigan voters),” Ickes said.

As the committee deliberated, jeers from Clinton supporters in the hotel ballroom grew louder. “Denver! Denver! Denver!” people chanted.

The Democratic presidential convention will be held in Denver in August. The chant suggests that Clinton supporters want to carry their protest all the way to the convention. Her campaign could appeal the decision to another party committee, which is scheduled to meet in July.