PREVIEW: Will New Hampshire crown Mitt Romney?

By Anne K Walters Jan 6, 2012, 21:13 GMT

Washington - Mitt Romney looks untouchable in New Hampshire.

But the former Massachusetts governor will have to run through a gauntlet of challengers to secure the Republican nomination and face President Barack Obama in November presidential elections.

And those candidates hope the small north-eastern state that holds the country's first true primary on Tuesday, followed by series of contests in other states later this month, will make them the conservative alternative to Romney.

A poll by local television station WMUR and the University of New Hampshire released on Friday showed Romney with 44 per cent support in the state, with 59 per cent calling him the most likely candidate to beat Obama. Previous polls have showed him with strong double-digit leads over his nearest rivals.

'Romney's in strong shape in New Hampshire. The question is after New Hampshire,' said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

The tiny northern state of just 1.3 million residents plays an outsized role in picking presidential contenders and has long held the first party primaries. Along with the small central state of Iowa, which holds caucus meetings of party members, New Hampshire draws inordinate attention from candidates who spend months attempting to woo voters face-to-face.

The contest in Iowa this week ended in a draw with Romney just eight votes ahead of former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum. Those results have Romney supporters proclaiming him the inevitable nominee, since he squeaked through a narrow win in a state that he had not focussed extensively on until recent weeks.

But the result gave Santorum, 53, a boost and generated extensive media buzz, giving him the potential to coalesce the party's more conservative base and unseat Romney.

'New Hampshire can make a huge statement here,' Santorum told the Manchester Union Leader newspaper in an interview. 'New Hampshire can choose the conservative alternative (to Romney) and that's really what this is all about.'

Romney, 64, has focussed heavily on the state, which is right next door to his home state of Massachusetts and where he howns a vacation home. But because he is so favoured, commentators say he has to win big in order to make the vote count psychologically and portray him as the inevitable nominee.

Santorum, on the other hand, is a 'wild card,' Brown said, noting that he had struck a cord in Iowa but remained untested elsewhere.

'The question is can he very quickly assemble a conservative coalition, made up of the three-quarters of the people who didn't vote for him in Iowa,' he said.

In New Hampshire, Ron Paul, 76, stands second in opinion polls with 17 per cent support, according to a 7News/Suffolk poll. He appeals to the state's strong independent streak as a standardbearer for the party's libertarian wing - free market, socially liberal and opposed to US foreign intervention.

He is followed by Santorum, with 11 per cent, and former Utah governor Jon Huntsman - a moderate who skipped Iowa to focus on New Hampshire - with 9 per cent.

After New Hampshire the race will shift southward, with a primary in South Carolina on January 21. Santorum's strong emphasis on social conservative issues, such as opposition to abortion and gay rights, will likely play well there.

But having focussed nearly all his attention on Iowa and to a lesser extent New Hampshire, Santorum will have to scramble to collect enough money to compete.

'Once you leave New Hampshire, it's about momentum, media coverage and money,' Brown said.

Romney has no shortage of cash, with some 15 million dollars in cash in hand at the end of the third quarter last year.

Still, despite a recent fundraising blitz by Santorum that saw him bring in 1 million dollars in one day after Iowa, there are other signs that the party may ultimately line up behind Romney after all.

Pollster John Zogby notes that economic conservatives in the party's far-right Tea Party wing in New Hampshire appear to be shifting toward Romney. His business experience is seen as a positive in turning around the economy - and a vote getter in a campaign pitch that would portray Obama as faltering on jobs and economic issues.

'Before Iowa the majority of Tea Party supporters were saying we prefer a candidate who shares our views, whether or not that candidate can beat President Obama,' Zogby said, but New Hampshire voters now seem to disagree.

'Romney is seen by them and by others as the candidate of all of them best positioned to beat Obama.'