By James A. Barnes, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2008

For Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain, New Hampshire spelled relief. Smashing the predictions of all the major pre-primary polls and pundits who said her candidacy was headed for the rocks, Clinton defeated Barack Obama 39 percent to 36 percent in the Democratic presidential primary. And the Granite State was sweet vindication for McCain, who shook up his floundering campaign last summer and returned to his roots to defeat former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in the GOP race, 37 percent to 32 percent.

	Exit polls showed more ideological stratification among Republicans than Democrats.

Clinton's comeback from her loss to Obama in last week's Iowa caucuses sets the stage for a potential slugfest between those two in the next key rounds: the Nevada caucuses on Jan. 19 and the South Carolina primary on Jan. 26. The Republican race is more scrambled, with McCain and Romney headed for a showdown in the Michigan GOP primary on Jan. 15, followed by the Republican primary in South Carolina on Jan. 19 -- where the GOP's Iowa caucus winner, Mike Huckabee, who finished a distant third in New Hampshire, could bounce back.

Women (who made up 57 percent of the New Hampshire Democratic primary electorate, according to the National Election Pool exit poll) and core Democratic voters were critical to Clinton's success. She carried women by 46 percent to 34 percent over Obama, who captured men by 40 percent to 29 percent. Clinton also won voters from union households by 40 percent to 31 percent and those whose family income was less than $50,000, by 46 percent to 32 percent. Those two sets of figures were a blow to John Edwards, whose populist pitch only garnered 17 percent of the Democratic primary vote and a third-place finish.

The generational divide among Democratic voters in New Hampshire also worked to Clinton's advantage, which wasn't the case in Iowa. Clinton captured a hefty 48-percent plurality of the voters 65 years old and up, but the senior bloc was the only main age category she carried in the Hawkeye State. In New Hampshire, however, she carried voters who were 45 to 64 over Obama, 41 percent to 30 percent. In Iowa, she lost that group to Edwards.

She practically tied Obama among 30- to 44-year-old Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire, winning 39 percent to his 40 percent. In Iowa, Obama swamped Clinton in that age category, 42 percent to 23 percent. Obama swept 17- to 29-year-olds in New Hampshire, 51 percent to 28 percent, but the youth vote actually makes up a somewhat smaller share of the Democratic primary electorate (18 percent) than the Iowa caucus vote (22 percent). Women propelled Clinton to the front of the pack in all the age groups but the youngest.

On the education scale, Obama carried college post-grads, 43 percent to 31 percent; Clinton handily won those with a high school education or less, 48 percent to 30 percent. The two candidates ran about even among four-year college graduates and those with an associate degree or just some college education.

As the Democratic contest moves forward, some analysts believe that Edwards will help Clinton if he remains in the race because he, like Obama, has championed change over experience during the campaign. Edwards voters in New Hampshire had a more unfavorable view of Clinton (37 percent) than Obama (14 percent). On the other hand, Clinton's strength among older and less educated voters in New Hampshire suggests she could pick up some of Edwards' supporters if he is forced out of the competition.

But Clinton is likely to face a hurdle in South Carolina and other subsequent states with large black populations. In the past, Democratic presidential hopefuls picked by the party establishment, like Al Gore in 2000, were able to win a large enough share of the party's black vote to fend off an insurgent. Establishment candidates have also been able to count on a large union vote to bolster them. Now that Obama has established himself as a credible candidate, Clinton is guaranteed neither -- at least not any time soon. And unlike most insurgent candidates, Obama has demonstrated that he can raise the kind of financial war chest that normally only establishment candidates can amass.

Ideological Divides In The GOP
In the Republican race, McCain's success was fueled by his strength among independents and party moderates, the same ingredients that provided the foundation of his New Hampshire victory eight years ago. Unlike the Democratic race, the exit poll of the Republican primary showed much more ideological stratification, with McCain winning self-identified moderates by 44 percent to 27 percent and Romney carrying conservatives 38 percent to 30 percent.

But Romney's advantage among New Hampshire conservatives is not so wide that he can afford to relax, and he has more work to do to consolidate his control of the party's right. Romney only had a solid hold on those who described themselves as "very conservative," winning that group with 43 percent to McCain's 18 percent and Huckabee's 19 percent. Among Republicans who said they were only "somewhat conservative" -- a group that outnumbered hard-core conservatives -- McCain battled Romney to a tie, carrying that group by a statistically insignificant margin of 3 points (38 percent to 35 percent).

Meanwhile, McCain carried self-identified independents by 41 percent to 28 percent. That should bode well for him in Michigan, where all registered voters can participate in either primary. In 2000, 35 percent of the GOP presidential primary voters were independents, and McCain carried that group more than 2-to-1 on his way to defeating George W. Bush. This year, Michigan independents are likely to flock to the Republican race, because the Democratic presidential primary is virtually meaningless: Clinton is the only major candidate on the ballot and the Democratic National Committee stripped the state of all its convention delegates after it broke party rules by deciding to hold an early contest.

Romney is not without advantages in Michigan; his father was a popular three-term governor of the state, and Mitt Romney has already been running TV ads in the state. (National Journal subscribers can watch the ads, "Asian Tiger" and "It's Personal To Me.") But as New Hampshire and Iowa have shown, Romney's early financial advantage in the Republican race, which has allowed him to spend more on advertising than his opponents, has yet to produce a victory for him.

In New Hampshire, where Romney hammered McCain on the airwaves for not voting for Bush's dramatic first-term tax cuts, Republican primary voters apparently placed deficit reduction as a higher priority than cutting taxes: McCain carried the former group by 20 points and Romney won the latter by only 10 points. At the same time, Republicans who said the economy was the most important issue facing the country also favored McCain over Romney, 41 percent to 21 percent.

But among Republicans who took a hard line on immigration policy, Romney successfully exploited McCain's past support for more lenient legislation. Half of the GOP New Hampshire primary voters said they wanted illegal immigrants to be deported to their home countries, and Romney carried that group 40 percent to 24 percent over McCain.

Like Michigan, South Carolina allows all registered voters to participate in either party primary, but it is likely to be a bigger challenge for McCain. He carried independents who voted in the 2000 GOP primary, but Bush swamped him among Republicans. And the relatively high number of evangelical and born-again voters who were the core of Huckabee's victory in Iowa could provide him with a boost.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani is almost the forgotten man in the Republican race. Once the GOP front-runner, Giuliani limped into a fourth-place finish in New Hampshire. He has said that he will make his comeback in the Republican Florida primary on Jan. 29, but that depends on whether the GOP contest continues to produce different results in Michigan, South Carolina and Nevada, where Republicans will also caucus on Jan. 19.

Not much has been clear-cut in the Republican race so far, but if McCain is able to consolidate his grip on party moderates and independents who pick up GOP primary ballots, it's less likely that Giuliani will be able to score a Florida win to propel him into the bonanza of 21 Republican primaries and caucuses on Feb. 5.