Independents may be crucial in N.H.

Nonetheless, even Mrs. Clinton’s advisers acknowledged Mr. Obama’s profile — like that of Mr. McCain and former Senator Bill Bradley, a New Jersey Democrat, in 2000 — seems well suited for this bloc. As a rule, they are middle- and upper-income, college-educated, socially moderate, fiscally conservative, anti-Washington and repulsed by what many described as the overly partisan atmosphere there.

“I’m very concerned about polarization in this country,” said Sarah Kurzon, a publisher of puzzles who voted for Mr. McCain in 2000 and said she was likely to support Mr. Obama this time. . “I find Obama very attractive: He’d be thrilled to have Republicans voting for him.”

These voters also more anti-war than the Republican electorate; a recent poll by the University of New Hampshire and CNN found about half of the independents opposed the war, a sentiment that was repeated in interviews here, and that is clearly hurting Mr. McCain.

“I won’t vote for McCain again,” said Ms. Eneguess. “I think we need more of a change. And the war is a real big issue.”

”While Mr. Obama is now focusing on appealing to such voters in New Hampshire, aides said there were a number of other early states where independent voters are allowed to participate in a Democratic primary and which could prove important to Mr. Obama’s success. Among those are California, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, and South Carolina.

For now, though, the focus is on New Hampshire, where these voters have become a source of focus, and to some extent anxiety, for campaigns moving into the final stages of this contest.

If any Republican benefits from a move of independent voters to the Democratic fold, it is likely to be Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, whose very conservative appeal in Iowa, particularly on social issues could hurt him among independents. Some of Mr. Romney’s advisers argued that the more independents who voted in the Democratic primary, the more it could hurt Mr. McCain and Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York mayor, by depriving them of potential votes.

Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama seem so far to be the main competitors for these voters, though a third candidate, former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, has been hitting many of the same anti-Washington themes, reflecting what aides said was his own attempt to make inroads with independent voters.

Independent voters are different in many ways from most other voters here. They tend to pay less attention to the contest until the very end and are less likely to vote. As a group, they are volatile and unpredictable, which accounts for much of the uncertainty.

Linda L. Fowler, a professor of government at Dartmouth, conducted a study of independents in 2000, questioning a group before and after the primary. She said found that 70 percent of them had changed their mind at least once about which party’s primary they would participate in, as well as which candidate to support.

Andrew Smith, the director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, said the biggest change he has found among independent voters was the extent to which they were more likely to identify themselves as Democrats. In a survey he released last week, about 45 percent described themselves as leaning Democrat, up from about 30 percent in 2000. About 30 percent in this survey identified themselves as leaning Republican, a figure that is essentially unchanged from 2000.

Picking the president: The candidates Click to visit that candidate's MSNBC page or click the XML symbol for an RSS feed. John McCain                Barack Obama

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