Isn't this ridiculous? This is statistically insignificant. You're talking about a hicktown with a population of 50 -- and that's supposed to extrapolate to the wider field of New Hampshire? And notice they're publicizing these results big time (CNN.com) so everyone in New Hampshire has not only Iowa as a precedent, but New Hampshire itself! It's like they squeezed out another win for the two guys they mentioned before the New Hampshire primary.
Don't think that "early results" don't matter psychologically -- because they do. If CNN starts publishing election results while polls are still open on the West Coast, don't you think some people might be influenced about who they'll vote for?
Let's face it, everyone wants to be on the winning team.
DIXVILLE NOTCH, New Hampshire (CNN) -- Voters in two New Hampshire hamlets cast their ballots Tuesday just after midnight in the state's first-in-the-nation presidential primary, hours before the rest of the state's polling places open.
The first ballots were cast in Dixville Notch, a hamlet of about 75 near the Canadian border.
People there favored Sen. John McCain in the Republican primary -- he got four votes -- and Sen. Barack Obama 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 by the time all the votes are cast.
The last polls close at 8 p.m.
Leading up to the primary, the top contenders were scrambling to nail down supporters among an electorate notorious for its independence.
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 and former Sen. John Edwards. Video Watch Rep. Duncan Hunter honor the early-voting tradition »
And McCain expressed confidence that he would win the day's Republican primary, a contest he won 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 the Granite State, outspending McCain 2-to-1, according to figures from TNS Media Intelligence/CMAG, CNN's consultant on television campaign advertising.
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But a CNN/WMUR poll of likely voters released Monday night showed McCain leading Romney by a margin of 31 to 26 percentage points.
Change was the buzzword on all the candidates' lips Monday. Speaking in Nashua, Romney emphasized his experience in business and in shaking up the 2002 Winter Olympic effort rather than his experience in public office.
"If there has ever been a time we need a change in Washington, it's now," Romney said. "Because in my experience, what I've heard as I travel this country is that Washington is broken."
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Romney also spent heavily in Iowa, only to be beaten by Mike Huckabee. The former Arkansas governor won Iowa with extensive support from evangelical Christian voters, but was running third in more secular, libertarian New Hampshire with 13 percent, Monday's poll found.
"If we come in anywhere in the third or fourth spot, we are going to be doing great," he said on CNN Monday.
New Hampshire's independent voters, who make up about 40 percent of the state's electorate, could throw a surprise into the primaries, however.
McCain's 2000 victory came on the backs of a strong independent turnout in the GOP primary, but a CNN-WMUR poll Sunday found independent voters split almost evenly between the parties this year.
And more than 20 percent of respondents on both sides said they either had not yet made up their minds or are still open to changing their minds before voting.
Among Democrats, Monday's poll found Obama riding a 9-point lead over Clinton, 39 percent to 30 percent. Edwards, who edged out Clinton for second place in Iowa, ran third with 16 percent.
Obama's theme of "hope" has drawn crowds, but also criticism from rivals who suggest he will be too soft to deliver the change he promises. The first-term Illinois senator defended his message Monday, telling a crowd in Rochester that hope "is not blind optimism."
"Hope's the opposite of that," he said. "Hope's not ignoring the challenges and obstacles that stand in your way, it's about confronting them."
Meanwhile, he said, "The real gamble would be to have the same old folks doing the same old things over and over and over again and somehow expecting a different result."
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 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."
Edwards, meanwhile, 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.
"What has been happening in America is it is big corporate businesses and big multinational corporations that have entirely too much influence on the policy," he told CNN.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who was polling fourth among Democrats at 7 percent, said he has set his sights on the remaining undecided voters.
"With Bill Richardson, you get change and you get experience," the former U.N. ambassador and energy secretary told CNN. "You have to have experience to change things. I have a record."
Rep. Dennis Kucinich and former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel also remain in the Democratic field.
Among the Republican pack, former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson has virtually abandoned New Hampshire, while former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has limited his campaigning in early states to focus on the Florida primary later in the month and the February 5 "Super Tuesday" contests.
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Rep. Ron Paul, an anti-war Texas congressman and onetime Libertarian Party presidential nominee, was drawing 10 percent support in Monday's poll, and a growing number of independents have told pollsters they are considering voting for him.
"The big trouble that we have over the last year was you know, getting our message out," Paul told CNN. "And now, the money is flowing in, the money comes in faster than we can spend it. Because when people hear this message, they get so excited about it."
Topic: Telling New Hampshire who to vote for (Read 392 times)