Governor predicts heavy voter turnout

10:09 AM MST on Tuesday, January 27, 2004

CNN Report

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire -- Temperatures hovered in the single digits on Tuesday morning in many parts of New Hampshire as voters cast their ballots in the nation's first presidential primary.

Polls opened in most of the state at 6 a.m. ET and are scheduled to stay open in most polling places until 8 p.m. ET.

In the tiny town of Dixville Notch, voters went to the polls shortly after midnight Tuesday to cast their ballots, giving retired Gen. Wesley Clark an early lead in the primary tally. He was the only candidate to visit the community.

Of the 15 people casting ballots in the Dixville Notch Democratic primary, eight voted for Clark. Sen. John Kerry collected three, Sen. John Edwards had two and Sen. Joe Lieberman and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean had one each.

President Bush, who is unopposed, received 11 votes.

"This is a great way to begin the next day," said a smiling Clark in Dixville Notch at about 12:15 a.m. ET. "This is the first election I've had since homeroom student council representative. This is a big step for me."

New Hampshire Gov. Craig Benson, a Republican, predicted that given the level of media attention and advertising, turnout would be heavy for the primary, despite freezing temperatures and a looming snowstorm in the weather forecast.

"I think everybody in New Hampshire understands that their ability to weigh in is important," Benson told "Judy Woodruff's Inside Politics" on CNN-USA.

Benson also said the outcome of the Democratic race may be how many independents decide to cast Democratic ballots. Nearly 38 percent of the state's voters have no declared party preference, and they are allowed to vote in either the GOP or Democratic contests.

"These people fall off the [pollsters'] radar screen," Benson said, adding that the lack of a race on the Republican side will likely mean many of the independents will choose to vote in the Democratic primary.

Numbers game

The latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup tracking poll showed that the battle for third place, behind Kerry and Dean, was a statistical dead heat between Clark and Sens. Lieberman of Connecticut and Edwards of North Carolina.

Trailing were Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio and civil rights activist the Rev. Al Sharpton.

Kerry, ahead in the polls but stubbornly insisting he's not really the front-runner, is trying to hold on to the bounce he received from his come-from-behind win last week in the Iowa caucuses.

"Some people are counting hours. I'm not counting hours. What I'm counting is the importance of our mobilizing and coming together in order to make clear that tomorrow, in New Hampshire, we mark the beginning of the end of the Bush presidency," he told cheering supporters in Portsmouth on Monday.

Dean, once safely ahead in the Granite State but now indicated to be second in the polls, predicted on Monday that he would close the gap with Kerry.

"We've been surging in the last few days," Dean said in an interview with CNN's "Wolf Blitzer Reports." "There's a lot of surge because people are really anxious not to have politicians from Washington running the show, and they really want a change."

Over the weekend, Lieberman claimed he had the "Joementum," hoping his niche as the centrist in the race would appeal to independent voters.

"As my record will show, I have been ready to say 'no' to special interest groups or ideological extremists or even my own party if I don't believe what they're asking me to do is right for the country," he said Monday at a campaign stop in Laconia.

Edwards is hoping to replicate his surprise surge in Iowa, where he went from nowhere to second place. He drew more than 600 people at events Monday in Portsmouth and Milford, where the fire marshal moved the rally from a church basement to the sanctuary, filling every pew.

Despite serving the last five years in the Senate, Edwards, like Dean, continued to pitch himself as an outsider and agent of change.

"If we want real change in America, real change in Washington, it is my belief that it takes somebody who is not a Washington insider to do that," he said. "I mean, I've been in Washington long enough to see what's wrong with it and what needs to be done."

Other developments

• In the last week of the campaign, Dean has poured at least $1.15 million into advertising in New Hampshire -- nearly twice as much as Kerry, who spent at least $606,000, according to estimates from Campaign Media Analysis Group (CMAG), CNN's ad spending consultant. CMAG estimated that Clark spent at least $643,000 into ads. Lieberman was next, spending at least $625,000, followed by Kerry and then Edwards, whose spending was at least $425,000.

• Results from New Hampshire promise to reverberate into next week, when seven states, including South Carolina and Missouri, hold contests. The February 3 contest in Missouri is considered wide open after favorite son Rep. Dick Gephardt dropped out of the presidential race.

• Followers of perennial presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche interrupted a campaign event for Dean on Monday in Manchester, New Hampshire, before being drowned out by his supporters and removed from the room with the assistance of author-commentator Al Franken. They screamed that Dean is "a liar" and not a Democrat. They said the only candidates telling the truth are LaRouche and Kerry.

This article courtesy of CNN.

CNN's Dan Lothian, Candy Crowley, Kelly Wallace, Jeanne Meserve, Bob Franken, Justin Dial,Phil Hirschkorn , Deirdre Walsh and Robert Yoon contributed to this report.