New Hampshire!

Donald Trump continues to hold a wide lead among likely Republican primary voters in New Hampshire, according to a new CNN/WMUR tracking poll, with the pack vying for second place is beginning to break up.

Behind Trump's field-leading 29% support, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio climbs to second place with 18% following his strong third place finish in Iowa, followed by Ted Cruz (13%) and John Kasich (12%) in a near-tie for third. Jeb Bush holds fifth place at 10%, a hair behind Cruz and Kasich, with Chris Christie and Carly Fiorina well behind at 4% each. The fight for second place between Cruz, Rubio and Kasich remains within the survey's margin of sampling error.

The poll was conducted entirely after the Iowa caucuses.

On the rise in a tightening race, Marco Rubio shouldered intensifying attacks Friday from moderate-leaning Republicans who fear a strong Rubio showing in Tuesday's New Hampshire primary could spell the end for their frazzled presidential campaigns.

Jeb Bush and Chris Christie both accused Rubio of a lackluster set of accomplishments. Bush, campaigning with his mother, former first lady Barbara Bush, summed up the Florida senator's achievements in one word: "Nothing."

http://www.npr.org/2016/02/04/465592850/heading-into-new-hampshire-gop-front-runners-are-anything-but

For Republicans who aren't named Ted Cruz or Donald Trump, the goal in New Hampshire's upcoming primary is to finish second — at best.

That's the best outcome the establishment Republican contenders can hope for following this week's Iowa caucuses, where Cruz and Trump topped the field in a tight three-way race with Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.

It's a far cry from the beginning of this campaign cycle, when Jeb Bush was the acknowledged Republican front-runner and had the backing of what was presumed to be a source of power within the GOP, the Republican establishment. Now, the power of the establishment is in question, and when Bush campaigns, he acknowledges membership in that class with some good humor.

It's a matter of pedigree.

"I'm part of the establishment because I am Barbara Bush's son," he said at a recent town hall meeting in Manchester, N.H. "Well, I'm not worried about that."

For Bush, and at least two other GOP contenders, it's also about having been a governor, and about having had to solve problems rather than advance an ideology.

At the gathering at Manchester's Alpine Club, where Bush fielded questions from voters, he also advanced an establishment outlook: Republicans are about governing well — not just expressing anger.

He thinks Kasich and Christie could do it — but not Bush. Voters, Cullen says, have already made up their minds about Bush.

The most intriguing candidate of the moment is neither a sitting governor — like these three — nor a political bomb thrower like Trump or Cruz.

It's Marco Rubio.

When the Florida senator hit the national political stage six years ago, he was the darling of the newborn Tea Party. He challenged the Republican governor for the Senate nomination and won.

Once in the Senate, though, Rubio worked with Democrats on a plan for immigration reform, a plan he later walked away from.

Is he an acceptable mainstream Republican to New Hampshire primary voters? Cullen says that's a big question facing Rubio this week.

"Well, he's making the argument here in New Hampshire that he can unite the party, that he can appeal to Tea Party conservatives, liberty conservatives, traditional Republicans," Cullen says. "I don't think he's the only candidate who's making that argument or could do it, but the other candidates maybe are more easily identified as traditional mainstream Republicans."

Ellen Hyatt and Mary Sue Sanderson, both from Hampton, N.H., and both of whom identify themselves primarily as moms, were among those at the Rubio rally. Hyatt said the two of them have been mulling over the primary race.

"We were talking Cruz versus Rubio. And much of what they say is very similar but we really are debating very hard about what the differences are," Hyatt said.

To Sanderson, the fact that Rubio is already in D.C., and a part of the Republican establishment, is a strength. "He knows what's going on, and I think that knowing what's going on is actually a big help when you're faced with crisis decisions that need to be made," she says.

Rubio's attacks on his opponents come with one glaring exception: billionaire Donald Trump, who edged him for a second-place finish in Monday's caucuses. Rubio has reasoned that Trump has unveiled insufficient policy, and therefore, hasn't given him reason enough to criticize him, even though they disagree on several fundamental issues.

Instead, Rubio appears to be biding his time, quietly courting his rivals' potential voters. By doing so, he's pursuing a course of consolidation.

"He needs to coalesce the vote before he can challenge Trump," said Republican pollster Greg Strimple, who is unaligned with any of the campaigns. He said he has been impressed with what he calls the Rubio team's "message and strategic discipline."

Rubio captured headlines with his strong third-place finish in the leadoff contest Monday, finishing behind Cruz — the heavy favorite among Iowa's disproportionately influential evangelical conservatives — and less than a percentage point behind Trump, who had seesawed with Cruz between first and second place in most preference polls in Iowa.

If Rubio tops Cruz in New Hampshire's primary on Tuesday and finishes ahead of candidates such as former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, he will have more evidence to support a point he's been hammering for weeks: He is the candidate to unite the party.

Home of ROSBORNE.

The Republican presidential race has seemed at times like a contest of schoolyard insults and chest-thumping machismo. With Donald J. Trump leading the way, the campaign has repeatedly descended into a kind of primal struggle among men, each seeking to outdo his rivals through brutish intimidation.

But as the race has moved to New Hampshire, its tone has quietly, but noticeably, changed: Candidates who once vied to throw the hardest rhetorical punch are campaigning in gentler terms, emphasizing their compassion and human frailty, and especially their concern for women and families.

The adjustment is no coincidence: New Hampshire women, many of them independents or moderate Republicans — some supporting abortion rights — have emerged as perhaps the most critical swing vote in the primary next week.

Tara McCarthy, 49, of Henniker, New Hampshire, said she had been deluged by overtures from the campaigns as she tried to decide between Jeb Bush, a Republican, and Hillary Clinton, a Democrat, based on the issues she sees as most relevant to women.

“I am the unicorn,” said McCarthy, who works in sales. “I am female, working, middle-aged, and independent, and it’s true — I have no fewer than five voicemails on my phone every time I get home.”