N.H. voters take wait-and-see approach on primaries
New Hampshire voters take wait-and-see approach
MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Plenty of voters in New Hampshire may be undecided, but don't call them indecisive.
Sharon Beaty, 56, came to a Mitt Romney house party in Holderness as "an independent looking at all the options" in New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation presidential primary. "I'm very hasty in a lot of things in my life, but in politics, I generally wait and see," she says. "I'm an impulse buyer, but I don't do that politically."
With less than two months to go, the Republican campaign in this state is intensifying. Romney and John McCain, who both spent last weekend stumping here, have made winning the Granite State central to their strategies. Rudy Giuliani has put new emphasis on competing here, and long shot Ron Paul is trying to appeal to anti-government sentiment with his libertarian views. All but Giuliani are advertising on television.
Most state polls show Romney with a significant lead. No one thinks that will last, including Romney. "It's going to get narrower and narrower," he says. Polls also show that voters have not made up their minds, and that voters who say they have picked a candidate may change their allegiance.
Nearly one-quarter of all likely voters don't know which primary they will vote in, according to a late October poll from Saint Anselm College's New Hampshire Institute of Politics. Voters not registered with a party can choose either party on the day of the primary, and there are a lot who are undeclared: more than 40% of the state's voters.
"It's like trying to nail Jell-o to a wall," said Mike Dupre, a Saint Anselm political scientist who conducted the poll. "It's that fluid."
Glenn Moir, 35, a human resources director, finds himself torn "50-50" between Giuliani and Romney, who is well known in New Hampshire from his stint as governor of neighboring Massachusetts. "Romney comes across more convincing, but Giuliani's record speaks for itself," he says. But Moir, who voted for Kerry in 2004, also finds Democratic hopeful Barack Obama appealing. Part of his dilemma is that he's unsure of what the United States should do in Iraq. "One day I think, stay the course, the next day I think, get out."
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