Voters head to the polls early in N.H.

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Voters, many lining up before dawn, turned out in spring-like weather Tuesday to pick their favorites for president with the independent vote holding considerable sway over the outcome.

About 45% of the state's 828,000 registered voters are unaffiliated and can vote in either party primary, according to the Associated Press.

There was even a smattering of results. By tradition, two northern state hamlets — Dixville Notch and Hart's Location — turned out at en masse at midnight, long before statewide polls open at 6 a.m., to cast the first 46 ballots of the primary seasons, half for Democrats and half for Republicans.

On the Democratic side, Sen. Barack Obama picked up 16 votes, Sen. Hillary Clinton 3, former Sen. John Edwards 3 and Gov. Bill Richardson 1. On the Republican side, Sen. John McCain got 10 votes, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee 5, Rep. Ron Paul 4, former Gov. Mitt Romney 3 and for New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani 1.

Secretary of State Bill Gardner predicted a record turnout of about 500,000 (previous high: 396,000 in 2000).

Like last week's Iowa caucuses, the primary in New Hampshire had the potential for shaking up fortunes of candidates in both parties.

Following a third place finish in Iowa, Clinton has lost her national lead on the Democratic side, a new Gallup Poll shows, and Huckabee has wrested the top Republican spot from Giuliani.

Obama, who won last week's Iowa caucuses, is now tied at 33% nationally with Clinton, who finished third. Three weeks ago, she had a 15-point lead.

Huckabee, who also won in Iowa, was at 25%. Giuliani had 20% and John McCain 19%. All were within the poll's margin of error of +/-5 percentage points.

Even on election day the exhausted candidates were still shuttling around the state trying to rally their supporters.

In Manchester, three GOP hopefuls —Giuliani, Huckabee and Romney — even ran into each other outside Brookside Congregational Church in Manchester, where 50 voters lined up before dawn to cast ballots.

Romney predicted that independents "will get behind me."

Giuliani waved off a question about his decline in polls, pointing to the church and saying, "The only poll I'm interested in is the one that goes on inside there."

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton and her daughter Chelsea poured coffee for voters and a police officer at a Manchester elementary school before dawn.

"We're going to work all day to get the vote out," she said.

Going into the primary, Clinton trailed Obama in this state by double digits in several polls, including a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll released Sunday. She appeared to be struggling for composure as well as votes here Monday. Her voice faltered and broke with emotion as she explained at a Portsmouth coffee shop why she was running, an exchange shown repeatedly on TV and widely available online.

Clinton has projected a tough, disciplined image for months, but another side was evident when a woman asked her how she copes with the hardships of the campaign trail.

"I have so many opportunities from this country. I just don't want to see us fall backwards," Clinton said, her voice fading and breaking.

Even as she tried to keep a grip on her emotions, Clinton stayed on message. "Some of us are ready and some of us are not," she said of her rivals. "Some of us know what we will do on Day One, and some of us haven't really thought that through."

Obama drew exuberant overflow crowds. "Something's happening out here, folks; something's stirring in the air," he told a cheering audience at Rochester City Hall.

Edwards, who nosed out Clinton for second place in Iowa, posted a 5-point gain to 20% in the national Gallup Poll.

McCain ended his campaign on a note of confidence, predicting he'd win and that this time, unlike when he won in 2000, the victory would launch him to the White House. He said he wants to "restore trust and confidence in government."

McCain faced what pollster Scott Rasmussen called "an unusual two-front challenge" — competing with former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney for Republicans and with Obama for independents. He said Obama's rise was hurting McCain.

Romney closed with a theme he had toyed with briefly last fall: the need to change Washington, and his own "outsider" qualifications, as a former Olympics and business CEO, to do so. In speeches and a two-minute TV ad, he drew implicit contrasts with McCain, who is 71 and arrived in Congress in 1983.

No "Washington insider," Romney told a business group in Nashua, will be able to meet challenges such as job creation and expanded health coverage.

Contributing: David Jackson, Martha T. Moore and Susan Page