New Hampshire governor predicts record turnout
MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (CNN) — New Hampshire’s governor predicted a record turnout Tuesday for the first-in-the-nation presidential primary as candidates zigzagged across the New England state trying to influence undecided voters.
Gov. John Lynch said he expects half a million people to vote.
A wide open race in both parties and unseasonably mild temperatures could be contributing to the long lines at voting locations across the state.
High turnout at polling stations is forcing the New Hampshire secretary of state’s office to send more ballots to some polling locations, New Hampshire Deputy Secretary of State Dave Scanlan said.
In particular, the polling places were running low on Democratic ballots, Scanlan said, but no polling station had run out.
Scanlan initially said his office was confident voting could be completed with the number of ballots it had on hand.
But he later said he might be wrong in one or two cases. Should that occur, leftover absentee ballots could be used or the remaining ballots could be photocopied, initialed by a town clerk and counted by hand, Scanlan said.
The governor’s prediction follows record-breaking numbers in last week’s Iowa Democratic and Republican caucuses.
The New Hampshire secretary of state’s office said anyone waiting in line when the polls officially close at 8 p.m. ET will be allowed to vote.
The results of Tuesday’s voting could have huge implications in the Democratic and GOP races.
New Hampshire’s independent voters, who make up about 40 percent of the electorate, could throw a surprise into the primary. A CNN-WMUR poll Sunday found independent voters split almost evenly between the parties this year.
Despite months of campaigning and millions of dollars spent on advertising, more than 20 percent of respondents on both sides said they either had not yet decided on a candidate or are open to changing their minds before voting, the poll found.
Voting began in two hamlets just after midnight, hours before the rest of the state’s polling places opened. See the New Englanders head to the polls
The first ballots were cast in Dixville Notch, a hamlet of about 75 near the Canadian border.
People there favored Sen. John McCain of Arizona in the Republican primary — he got four votes — and Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois in the Democratic contest, who won seven votes.
Obama and McCain also won in midnight voting in Hart’s Location, population 42. The two senators hope to see those results duplicated statewide.
Obama worked to turn an apparent boost in the polls after the Iowa caucuses into a second victory over his leading rivals, Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina.
Among Democrats, a CNN/WMUR poll found Obama with a nine percentage point lead over Clinton, 39 percent to 30 percent. Edwards, who edged out Clinton for second place in Iowa, ran third with 16 percent.
At a morning rally, Obama praised the student volunteers working for his campaign and gave them one last mission: to persuade undecided voters to cast their ballots for him.
My job is to be so persuasive that if there’s anybody left out there who is still not sure whether they will vote, or is still not clear who they will vote for, that a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany … and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote for Obama, the Democrat said in Hanover.
Clinton has tried to turn the tide by emphasizing her record as a change agent, as a senator and as first lady.
She fought tears Monday as she described the stakes in the campaign at a forum with uncommitted voters in Portsmouth, calling it one of the most important elections America has ever faced.
This is very personal for me — it’s not just political, it’s not just public, she said in response to a question about the stress of the campaign. I see what’s happening, and we have to reverse it.
Former President Clinton lashed out at the media coverage Monday night, saying Obama should be pressed more fully on Iraq and accusing the senator from Illinois of shifting his position to reflect changing attitudes on the war. Watch as the ex-president tears into Obama’s record
It is wrong that Sen. Obama got to go through 15 debates trumpeting his superior judgment and how he had been against the war in every year, enumerating the years, and never got asked one time, not once, ‘Well, how could you say that when you said in 2004, you didn’t know how you would have voted on the resolution?’ You said in 2004 there was no difference between you and George Bush on the war, Clinton said at a campaign stop in Hanover.
And you took that speech you’re now running on off your Web site in 2004. And there’s no difference in your voting record and Hillary’s ever since.
He added, Give me a break. This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I’ve ever seen.
Speaking to reporters in Manchester Tuesday afternoon, Obama dismissed the former president’s comments, saying It seems like you guys have been reporting on me the entire year.
I remember this summer when we were down 20 points, we were getting knocked around pretty good, and I didn’t hear the Clinton camp complaining about how terrible the press was.
I understand they are frustrated right now, Obama added. I suspect that they will try and get back in terms of a strategy for them to do better than they feel they are doing right now.
Meanwhile, Edwards sharpened his criticism of Clinton, blasting her for taking money from the pharmaceutical and defense interests the former trial lawyer routinely excoriates on the stump.
I’ve never taken any money — any money — from a Washington lobbyist or a special interest PAC. She’s continued to do that. She’s taken more lobbyist money than any candidate, Edwards said Tuesday in Manchester.
On the Republican side, McCain expressed confidence he would win the Republican primary, just as he did during his first White House bid eight years ago.
We are going to prove that you can’t buy an election in the state of New Hampshire — and we are also going to prove that negative attack ads don’t work either, he said Monday in a jab at his leading rival, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
Romney has poured $8 million into television ads in New Hampshire, outspending McCain 2-to-1, according to figures from TNS Media Intelligence/CMAG, CNN’s consultant on TV campaign advertising.
But the CNN/WMUR poll of likely voters released showed McCain leading Romney by 31 percent to 26 percent.
Change was the buzzword on all the candidates’ lips, possibly because of Obama’s strong showing in Iowa last week.
Romney expressed confidence Tuesday that he would win the Republican primary because voters want an outsider who can fix how the federal government operates. Watch Romney he can bring about change
They want a new face, a new vision, somebody who can change Washington, Romney said. I’m convinced that it’s going to be a close one today, that the Republicans are going to vote for me and independents are going to get behind and we’re going to end up winning this thing.
Romney also spent heavily in Iowa, only to be beaten by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. Huckabee won the GOP Iowa caucuses with extensive support from evangelical Christian voters, but he was running third in the more secular, libertarian New Hampshire with 13 percent, Monday’s poll found.
Huckabee said Tuesday he believes Americans all want the same thing.
They want government to leave them alone, let them live their lives: They want government to do the job that it’s supposed to do, and that’s protect us, give us the capacity to be free, and then beyond that, let us live our lives, he said at a Manchester polling station.
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