N.H. independents chose Kerry

Howard Dean often predicts his candidacy will attract millions of new voters who respond to his message of change. New Hampshire recorded a record turnout in its Democratic presidential primary Tuesday, but Dean was not the beneficiary.

Surveys of voters as they left the polls suggested that Dean, who finished a distant second to John F. Kerry, beat the Massachusetts senator in only a handful of small demographic subgroups. Among them were voters ages 18 to 29, those who consider themselves "very liberal," and those who said they "frequently" visited campaign websites. None of those groups constituted more than 15 percent of the primary electorate, the exit polls indicated.

"The problem for Dean going forward to more conservative states in the South and Midwest is that Kerry has taken the center and pushed Dean farther to the left," said Jennifer Donahue, a political adviser at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College in Goffstown.

Dean's dilemma was compounded, Donahue said, by his apparent inability to mobilize independent voters in New Hampshire. Kerry's margin among independents, who turned out in record proportions, was only slightly less than among Democrats, the surveys showed. If Dean's anti-Washington rhetoric registers anywhere, Donahue said, it should be among independents, who constituted almost half of the state's Democratic primary electorate, according to the exit polls. In many states after New Hampshire, only Democrats will be allowed to participate, she said.

With surveys showing electability against President Bush in November a major factor on voters' minds, late-deciding voters swung to Kerry.

"New Hampshire voters voted strategically, which they don't often do," Donahue said. "They voted with their heads and not their hearts."

Based on the exit polls, the percentage of independents, or undeclared voters as they are called in New Hampshire, appears to have shattered records. Four years ago, roughly an equal number of independents turned out, but they split, with 68,492 voting in the Republican primary and 42,521 casting ballots in the Democratic race. They accounted for less than 30 percent of the turnout in either contest. This year, with only a Democratic contest, undeclared voters were well over 40 percent of the turnout, the exit polls indicate.

Kerry crushed Dean in the urban Democratic areas of New Hampshire and most of the bedroom communities to the south. He carried 11 of the state's 13 cities, losing to the Vermonter only in Lebanon and Keene, small cities near the Vermont border. In Manchester and Nashua, the state's most populous cities, Kerry thumped Dean by ratios greater than 2-to-1.

In the battle of New Hampshire neighbors, of 10 counties, Dean carried three, all bordering Vermont and sparsely populated. Kerry ran up huge margins in Hillsborough and Rockingham counties, which border Massachusetts and produced half of the vote.

Dean, however, ran well in college towns. He won not only Keene, but also Hanover, Durham, and Plymouth.

For other finishers in the primary, there was little to cheer about in the results. For retired General Wesley K. Clark, the high point was Dixville and Hart's Location, which voted after midnight in the northern part of the state. With eight and six votes, respectively, he won in the tiny communities, and nowhere else. In Millsfield, he tied Dean, Senator John Edwards, and Kerry. They all had one vote, according to unofficial returns. In Ellsworth, he and Kerry tied with seven votes apiece.

There was little good news for Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, who ran a distant fifth almost everywhere. By renting an apartment before the primary, however, Lieberman may have helped himself in Manchester. In the state's largest city, he finished third.