WASHINGTON — Barack Obama has wiped out Hillary Clinton’s once-commanding lead in New Hampshire, and the two remain virtually tied in Iowa, as voters get off the fence and decide who to support, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg News poll has found.
Obama drew backing from 32 percent of New Hampshire Democratic primary voters to Clinton’s 30 percent. A similar poll in September found him trailing 35 percent to 16 percent in the state that will hold its presidential primary Jan. 8.
In Iowa, which opens the 2008 presidential voting with its caucuses Thursday, the poll found Illinois Sen. Obama, New York Sen. Clinton and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards in a three-way dead heat.
But other poll findings suggest Clinton might gain stature in both states if Democrats’ concern about world affairs increases in the wake of Thursday’s assassination of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. The poll shows that Democrats in Iowa and New Hampshire — as they do elsewhere — consider Clinton better equipped than her rivals to safeguard national security.
Such a shift in focus from domestic policy also could affect the Republican presidential contest and benefit Arizona Sen. John McCain, whose campaign has rebounded in New Hampshire to put him in second place behind Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts.
The poll found that Republicans in New Hampshire and Iowa consider McCain best qualified to handle foreign affairs, although his campaign has suffered from months of weak fundraising and staff turmoil.
In Iowa, the poll found that the Republican race has been scrambled by the steep rise of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, the conservative Baptist minister who has opened a lead of 37 percent to 23 percent over Romney.
The poll underscores how, in both parties, the two earliest-voting states are ripe for surprises and upsets in the final days of the campaign.
“Things can go a little crazy up here in New Hampshire,” said Tom Mathauser, a poll respondent who supports Obama, referring to the state’s history of supporting dark-horse candidates Paul Tsongas in 1992 and McCain in 2000. “This is the kind of thing that can blow up in someone’s face.”
The findings illustrate how the competition among Democrats has intensified in early-voting states despite Clinton’s big lead in national polls. In a nationwide poll by the Los Angeles Times earlier this month, Clinton was favored by 45 percent of those polled; 21 percent chose Obama, and 11 percent said they were for Edwards.
The poll results in New Hampshire are problematic for Clinton because the state had been considered a bastion that could help her recover momentum if she has a weak showing in Iowa.
Obama is posing the principal threat there because the poll found Edwards placing a distant third with 18 percent. Other candidates — Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd, Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden Jr., Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson — drew single-digit support in both New Hampshire and Iowa.
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