Independents May Be Crucial in New Hampshire

[ariesgem]

CONCORD, N.H., Sept. 29 — Sally Garhart Eneguess voted for Senator John McCain in the Republican New Hampshire presidential primary in 2000. Next January, Ms. Eneguess said, she intends to vote for Senator Barack Obama in her state’s Democratic presidential primary.

Ms. Eneguess, a doctor from Peterborough, is an independent voter who is allowed under New Hampshire’s election laws to chose in which presidential primary she would like to vote, a decision she does not have to make until she walks into the voting booth. As such, she is the face of a segment of this state’s electorate that has swollen in size and influence and now stands to play a critical outcome in both New Hampshire contests.

It is a shift that has injected turmoil and uncertainty into these first-in-the-nation primaries, analysts and campaign officials said, creating an opportunity for Mr. Obama while posing complications to the candidacies of both Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, a Democrat, and Mr. McCain, a Republican.

The fight for independent voters in New Hampshire could be important not just in determining the two parties’ nominees but also as a preview of the general election. The percent of Americans who describe themselves as independents has increased from 28 percent in 2000 to 32 percent in 2007, according to polls conducted by The New York Times and CBS News.

Nowhere is the potential influence of this group more on display than in New Hampshire.

Independent voters, or undeclared voters as they are called here, make up 45 percent of the New Hampshire electorate, up from 28 percent in 1996, the year the legislature changed the law to simplify same-day registration. And by every indication, these voters, who voted overwhelmingly in the Republican primary of 2000, have veered sharply Democratic since than, reflecting growing anti-war sentiment here while powering a general shift of this state to the Democratic column.

As a result, some analysts expect an overwhelming majority of independents to participate in the Democratic presidential primary, a migration that could knock out what had been a pillar of Mr. McCain’s support in 2000. They accounted for his lopsided 18 percentage point victory over George W. Bush in 2000.

And aides to Mr. Obama, pointing to the ideological and demographic make-up of independent voters and the kind of maverick candidates to which they have historically been drawn, are looking to them to offset Mrs. Clinton’s strength among registered Democrats here. In this scenario, Mr. McCain’s loss could prove to be, in the topsy-turvy world of New Hampshire politics, Mr. Obama’s gain. This is the first time both Republicans and Democrats have held primaries since 2000, creating what is in effect a rivalry between two parties for independent voters.

“McCain could have been competitive with them, but he’s not,” said Steve Hildebrand, Mr. Obama’s deputy campaign manager. “When he started being the biggest proponent of the Iraq war, he shot virtually all of the opportunity he had to court these voters. Barack’s message is just right for that electorate.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/01/us/politics/01cnd-voters.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin