According to a Suffolk/News7 tracking poll on Monday, Mitt Romney is headed into today's New Hampshire primary with at least a 19 percent lead over his closest challenger, Ron Paul. But the large lead Romney has maintained for months has been eroding.
While Rick Santorum saw a bit of a surge following his narrow victory last week in Iowa and Jon Huntsman is on the rise thanks to his campaign's complete focus on New Hampshire, it is Paul who is in second place chasing Romney for the lead. Here's a look at what this means as the voting gets underway:
How close can Ron Paul make the race in New Hampshire?
New Hampshire voters love to shock the pundits and create surprising upsets. Four years ago most polls seemed to clearly indicate Barack Obama was headed for victory in the state -- polls had him leading by as many as 13 percentage points days before the election. New Hampshire shocked everyone by handing Hillary Clinton the victory. While Romney leads by a margin going into the voting that would make it difficult to conceive of a Paul victory in New Hampshire, even in the wildest dreams of his most fervent supporters, there might be room for surprises. New Hampshire does allow independent voters to cast their votes and a last-minute surge for Paul, driven by fiercely libertarian New Hampshire voters, could close the gap uncomfortably for Romney.
Could anyone else make the race interesting?
Huntsman has had an all-or-nothing campaign in New Hampshire. The moderate Republican has seen the state as his only hope toward gaining any momentum and continuing in the race for the nomination. His message is gaining some traction in the less-evangelical state but it doesn't seem like he has caught on the way that he had hoped to.
Of course the tiny New Hampshire hamlet of Dixville Notch, famed as the first town in the state to cast its vote in the primary every four years, thrust Huntsman into a dead heat with Romney for the lead shortly after midnight, each receiving two votes.
What's next after New Hampshire?
Given Romney's consistently large lead in New Hampshire most of the candidates, with the exception of Paul and Huntsman, have basically been looking past the state to South Carolina and beyond. The latest polls in the Palmetto State show Romney leading, but with Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich closing the gap. If Romney wins by a smaller margin than expected in New Hampshire, that could open the door for other candidates to challenge him in South Carolina, Florida and beyond.
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