Clinton and McCain Rebound to Take N.H.

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The Candidates React - John McCain

Presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) addresses his supporters after the New Hampshire primary election results filter in.

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With 95 percent of the votes counted, Giuliani was in fourth place. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), whose libertarian views were a good match for New Hampshire, was in fifth place. Former senator Fred D. Thompson (Tenn.) was sixth, with just over 1 percent of the vote.

The Republican contest now moves quickly to Michigan, where voters will cast ballots next Tuesday, and to South Carolina, which holds the first primary in the South four days later. All six Republican candidates are expected to stay in the hunt for the nomination.

After starting 2007 as the presumptive favorite, McCain saw his big-budget campaign fall apart under the weight of his support for the Iraq war and his sponsorship of an immigration overhaul with Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (Mass.). Donors stopped giving. Most of his advisers quit. Pundits declared him finished.

But McCain never stopped campaigning in the Granite State. He borrowed money, trimmed his staff, pulled out of Iowa and traveled New Hampshire in a bus -- just as he did in 2000 to beat George W. Bush.

On Tuesday, McCain was mobbed by enthusiastic crowds as his campaign bus, the Straight Talk Express, arrived at polling locations. At the Ward 1 polling venue in Nashua -- in McCain's only public event today -- he was immediately overtaken by supporters.

Huckabee visited the Brookside Congregational Church in Manchester and a church voting precinct in Dover. Romney stopped by Bedford High School, the Associated Press reported, getting out of his car with Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) and trudging across packed snow to shake hands with voters and pose for pictures along the way.

Thompson, who had not campaigned much in New Hampshire and has trailed in the polls there, left the state even before voting began and headed to South Carolina to start an 11-day bus tour of the state.

The rest of the GOP candidates will gather in Myrtle Beach, S.C., on Thursday for another debate.

In anticipation of the battle there, McCain advisers on Tuesday announced the formation of a "Truth Squad" composed of several senior elected officials in South Carolina to counter any attacks he may encounter in that state. McCain's 2000 New Hampshire win was quickly erased when backers of George W. Bush circulated rumors that McCain had fathered an illegitimate child and was possibly a traitor during the Vietnam War, during which he was held for five years as a prisoner of war.

"We saw what happened in Iowa with the negative attacks. We see what's happening in New Hampshire, and I can tell you for certain, we won't stand for it here in South Carolina," said South Carolina Adjutant Gen. Stanhope S. Spears, a McCain backer.

McCain emerged this year as the early favorite among the power brokers inside the Beltway, in part by spending years quietly courting President Bush's biggest donors and signing up the Karl Rove disciples who helped Bush defeat McCain eight year earlier.

After McCain's implosion, the establishment shifted for a while to Giuliani, who commanded what appeared to be a solid lead in national polls. But his support for abortion rights and stories of ethical problems in New York eroded his position in Iowa and New Hampshire, leading him to abandon both.

In his concession speech, Giuliani vowed to win future contests, starting in Florida. "Maybe we've lulled our opponents into a false sense of confidence now," he quipped.

Romney's strength in those early states throughout the summer, as well as his ability to raise money, helped him lift expectations among the Washington pundits. But questions about his Mormon faith and attacks about his tendency to change positions kept his national numbers down.

That opened an opportunity for Huckabee, whose victory in Iowa vaults him into a leading position. But the economic and foreign policy conservatives are wary of Huckabee, who has little international experience and whose populist message rivals that of former senator John Edwards (D-N.C.).

Thompson and Paul have never been favorites of the establishment. But the failure of anyone else to emerge has kept them in the race.

Staff writer Lois Romano contributed to this report.