If the New Hampshire Primary were held today, Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton would win solidly. That is the finding of a poll being presented today by the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College. Sponsored by the Institute, the poll surveyed 1,514 likely primary voters in New Hampshire.
With 43 percent support, Hillary Clinton commanded a 21-point lead over her nearest rival, Barack Obama, who polled at 22 percent. The third-place candidate was John Edwards, with 14 percent. Clinton polled strongly across genders, religions and age groups. She made a greater showing among 18-to-29-year-olds than Obama, who has been portrayed as the candidate of young people.
The poll shows Romney with a nearly 11-point lead over the second place candidate, Rudy Giuliani, among likely Republican primary voters. Fred Thomson showed only 5 percent support.
Romney also polled well across religious groups, indicating that in New Hampshire the former Massachusetts governor’s Mormon religion is not an issue. Romney showed strong support among women, with 37 percent saying they would vote for him, compared to 29 percent of men.
While Romney and Clinton pulled a majority among likely primary voters of their respective parties, the picture is mixed among undeclared voters. More than 40 percent of voters who identified themselves as undeclared said they were still unsure if they would vote in the Democratic or Republican primary. At the same time, 41 percent of undeclared voters said they would vote in Democratic primary and 19 percent in the Republican contest.
“While the patterns remain consistent, the data suggests there is still indecisiveness among likely voters in New Hampshire,” said Dr. Michael Dupre, senior fellow at Saint Anselm’s Institute of Politics.
Dupre designed and coordinated the poll, which was executed by SRBI Research in New York City. The survey was conducted by telephone from Oct. 15 to 21. The margin of error for the entire sample is approximately 2.6 percent. The margin of error for subgroups is 4.1 percent for Democrats, 4.5 percent for Republicans and 4.8 percent for undecided voters.