Obama set for victory in crucial US primary

Democrat Barack Obama appeared poised to defeat Hillary Clinton for the second time in less than a week tonight as voters streamed into polling stations in New Hampshire in the US’s first presidential primary election.

On the Republican side, John McCain and Mitt Romney competed head-to-head in a race that could sink the presidential aspirations of one of them. Polls indicated Mr McCain had an edge but no clear-cut advantage.

Mr Obama declared Americans were ready to “cast aside cynicism” as he looked for a convincing win in the Democratic contest.

Wins in such early contests as the New Hampshire primary and last week’s caucuses in Iowa are crucial in building momentum as candidates compete state-by-state for delegates to this summer’s party conventions, where one candidate from each party will be named to move on towards the November national election.

Mrs Clinton, who is hoping to become America’s first female president, has been running second in the New Hampshire surveys, with former Senator John Edwards third. The former first lady and her aides seemed to be bracing for another setback following Mr Obama’s win in Iowa last week.

“Today you can make your voice heard – you can insist that change will come,” Mr Obama told a crowd at Dartmouth College. “The American people have decided for the first time in a very long time to cast aside cynicism, to cast aside fear, to cast aside doubts.”

Looking back at his Iowa victory, the man who would be the first black president said: “The state was not, according to the experts, designed for me. There were not a lot of people who look like me in Iowa.”

Polls indicated Mr Obama, who is of Kenyan descent, had pulled ahead of Mrs Clinton as she fought for a comeback.

Former President Bill Clinton, dampened expectations for his wife, saying the unusually short stretch between Iowa and New Hampshire presented little chance to counter Obama’s momentum.

“It takes some time to undo that; for people to say, ’Well, this is our race in our state and we’re going to think about this and give all these candidates a free shot’,” he said.

“If this were 10 days after Iowa, instead of five, I believe we would have no doubt about what the outcome would be.”

Mrs Clinton was hard at work this morning, as she and her daughter Chelsea poured coffee for voters and a police officer at a Manchester primary school before dawn, greeted by a dozen voters and twice as many supporters outside. “We’re going to work all day to get the vote out,” she said.

Her next stop was at a polling place in a Nashua high school, where pupils who had just arrived by bus screamed with excitement and enveloped her.

The gym at Dartmouth where Mr Obama was speaking was only about two-thirds full, in contrast with his packed events over the last few days. A young woman near the front of the crowd fainted and he stopped his speech for nine minutes, staring down with his arms crossed, until she was taken out on a stretcher, alert and talking.

TNS Media Intelligence.cmag, a firm that tracks political advertising, said Mrs Clinton spent 5.4 million dollars (£2.7 million) to reach New Hampshire voters, and Mr Obama spent 5 million dollars (£2.5 million). The total for Edwards was 1.7 million dollars (£850,000), reflecting a smaller campaign treasury. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, the fourth candidate in the race, could afford about 500,000 dollars (£250,000).

As was the case in Iowa, Mr Romney spent more than his rivals combined on television for the New Hampshire primary.

The struggle for primacy in the Democratic and Republican campaigns was, to an outsized degree, in the hands of independents who make up a large share of the voters in New Hampshire, and who by definition are not loyal to either party.

By 7am, three of the Republican candidates had already turned up at a church in Manchester that is the site of one of the largest polling places in the city. When Mr Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani passed each other outside, Mr Huckabee jokingly asked the former New York mayor for his vote.

Mr Romney had banked on victories in Iowa and New Hampshire to propel his campaign forward, but was defeated last week in Iowa by Mr Huckabee, who swept past him with an underfunded campaign. Now Mr Romney faces a strong challenge from a resurgent Mr McCain, who won New Hampshire against establishment pick George Bush in 2000.

Casting himself as the Republican best able to hold the White House, Mr Romney said, “My record of bringing change is going to post up very well against Barack Obama.”

In a detour into diplomacy, Mr Obama phoned Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga yesterday and was expected to do the same today with President Mwai Kibaki, whose disputed victory in the December 27 elections led to an eruption of violence across the country.

The Illinois senator, whose father was Kenyan, “called to express grave concern over the election outcome,” Mr Odinga’s spokesman Salim Lone said.

Mr McCain held a statistically insignificant lead over Mr Romney in late polls. Mr Obama had a clear advantage over Clinton in surveys and Mr Edwards trailed both, with Richardson, the New Mexico governor, in the rear.

Mr Huckabee campaigned vigorously in New Hampshire in the final days but without expectations of victory. He, former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson and one-time national poll leader Mr Giuliani looked to later contests.

Mr Thompson, who also has acted in television’s Law and Order, campaigned in South Carolina today.