KEY POINTS:
NEW HAMPSHIRE - Democrat Hillary Clinton battled to keep crucial New Hampshire from swinging to rising rival Barack Obama today but new polls show him jumping into the lead.
In the hotly contested Republican race, Arizona Senator John McCain leaped ahead of former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney even as Romney tried to raise doubts about McCain.
Republican candidates engaged in a Fox News Channel debate on Sunday night.
Obama, an Illinois senator seeking to be the first black US president, built on his victory in Iowa last week with a significant bounce in New Hampshire, which votes on Tuesday.
New Hampshire's primary is the next battleground in the state-by-state process of choosing Republican and Democratic candidates for November's election to replace President George W Bush.
A USA Today/Gallup poll said Obama had opened up a 13-point lead over Clinton in New Hampshire, 41 per cent to 28 per cent, to 19 per cent for former North Carolina Senator John Edwards.
A WMUR/CNN tracking poll, taken over the weekend, showed Obama leading Clinton, 39 to 29 per cent.
Earlier polls had shown the race to be a dead heat between Clinton and Obama.
A loss in New Hampshire would be a significant blow to Clinton in the New York senator's drive to become the first woman US president.
Trying to salvage New Hampshire, the former first lady engaged in some of her heaviest attacks against Obama in the months-long campaign.
In Nashua, Clinton said that while Obama talks a lot about changing the United States, she believes she has actually carried out change. Change from the Bush administration is a leading theme in the presidential campaign.
"It is about how we bring about change by making sure we nominate and elect a doer and not a talker, that we begin to separate out rhetoric from reality," Clinton told a large, enthusiastic crowd in Nashua.
Accusing Obama and Edwards of not showing leadership on a litany of issues, she said, "That's not change," and the crowd joined in with her.
"That's not change," they yelled.
Obama, at a rally at a high school in Salem, fired back: "We don't need our leaders telling us what we can't do. We need our leaders to believe in what we can accomplish."
The race was taking a negative turn on both sides in a state that is vital to efforts by Clinton and Romney to revitalize their campaigns after disappointing showings last Thursday in Iowa.
Obama received the endorsement of former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley, who finished a close second to then Vice President Al Gore in the 2000 Democratic primary here.
The USA Today/Gallup poll said McCain had taken the lead over Romney, 34 per cent to 30 per cent. A win for McCain in New Hampshire would be a remarkable turnaround for him after his campaign suffered money problems last summer and was all but given up for dead.
Romney, who would be the first Mormon president, needs to win or finish high in New Hampshire to maintain his credibility after losing to former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee in Iowa.
At a rally in Nashua, Romney said he doubted McCain would stand up well against Obama, who he said was succeeding against veteran Democratic senators in the presidential race.
"Are we going to do the same thing and put another long-serving US senator up against him for him to talk about. Or are we going to put somebody - I hope it's me - somebody who has spent his lifetime not just in politics, not in Washington, but changing things?" Romney said.
- REUTERS
