John McCain has doubled his support since mid-December and leads Mitt Romney, 35 percent to 29 percent, according to a Concord Monitor/Research 2000 post-Iowa survey of likely Republican primary voters in New Hampshire.

Rudy Giuliani's support has been halved, the poll found, and Mike Huckabee, the winner of the Republican caucuses in Iowa Thursday, has moved into third place.

Among likely Democratic primary voters, Barack Obama was the choice of 34 percent of those surveyed and Hillary Clinton was the choice of 33 percent, suggesting the race is a dead heat. John Edwards, who edged out Clinton for second place behind Obama in Iowa, was the choice of 23 percent of those polled.

Research 2000 conducted telephone interviews with 400 likely Republican and 400 likely Democratic primary voters Friday and yesterday. The margin of error for both samples is plus-or-minus 5 percentage points.

The independents

One of the big questions heading into Tuesday's primary is where undeclared voters will make their mark. Secretary of State Bill Gardner announced last week that undeclared voters, who are allowed to vote in either primary, now make up 45 percent of registered voters in the state.

The Monitor poll found these voters breaking to the Democratic primary by about a 3-to-2 ratio, which corresponds with Gardner's forecast. They could well decide both races.

Clinton led Obama among the registered Democrats surveyed, 35 percent to 30 percent, with Edwards the choice of 27 percent. Among undeclared voters, however, Obama was favored by 41 percent, compared with 29 percent for Clinton and 17 percent for Edwards.

McCain led among registered Republicans and undeclared voters, but the margins were very different. Among Republicans, McCain was up 32 percent to 30 percent. Among undeclared voters, the margin was 44 percent to 26 percent.

One potential wild card: Ron Paul was the choice of 13 percent of the undeclared voters saying they'll cast Republican ballots. That was enough, even with only 5 percent support among registered Republicans, for Paul to be nearly tied with Giuliani for fourth overall. Fox News is excluding Paul from its Republican debate tonight in favor of Fred Thompson, who was in sixth place in the Monitor poll.

The UNH survey center, along with WMUR and CNN, also released a post-Iowa poll yesterday. It showed similar results.

In that poll, McCain led Romney, 33 percent to 27 percent, on the Republican side, followed by Giuliani (14), Huckabee (11) and Paul (9). Thompson registered only 1 percent.

Obama and Clinton were tied at 33 percent on the Democratic side, followed by Edwards (20), Bill Richardson (4) and Dennis Kucinich (2).

More details of the Monitor's poll are available at concordmonitor.com and at our campaign blog, yourconcord.com/primaryblog.

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