Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton accused rival Sen. Barack Obama of changing positions on issues in a heated debate Saturday night, only three days before the nation's first primary in New Hampshire.
Support for former Sen. John Edwards, who edged out Clinton for second place in Iowa, dropped from 20 percent in Saturday's poll to 16 percent.
On the Republican side, Sen. John McCain leads former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney by a narrower margin -- 32 percent to 26 percent, the survey found -- while former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee moved to third place after winning last week in Iowa.
The poll, conducted by the University of New Hampshire, surveyed 341 likely Democrats and 268 Republicans likely to vote in Tuesday's primary. It had a sampling error of 5 percentage points.
"The Iowa caucus results have convinced growing numbers of Granite State voters that Obama can really go all the way," CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said. "In December, 45 percent thought Clinton had the best chance of beating the GOP nominee.
But in Saturday's poll, Clinton and Obama were tied on that measure, and now Obama has a 42 percent to 31 percent edge over Clinton on electability." And CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider said the poll "strongly suggests an Obama surge in New Hampshire."
"Obama's gaining about three points a day, at the expense of both Clinton and Edwards," Schneider said. "Obama's lead has now hit double digits going into the home stretch." New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson ranked fourth among the Democratic contenders with 7 percent, while Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich trailed at 2 percent. Former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel had less than one half of 1 percent support.
The big difference was in third place, where Huckabee -- whose upset win in Iowa came after being outspent by millions of dollars by Romney -- passed former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. In Saturday's poll, Giuliani had 14 percent and Huckabee had 11 percent; those numbers were reversed on Sunday.
The results suggest that Huckabee's win in Iowa, which saw him win strong support among evangelical Christian voters, is giving him momentum in more secular, libertarian-oriented New Hampshire, Schneider said. Anti-war Texas congressman and onetime Libertarian Party presidential nominee Ron Paul was in fifth place at 10 percent in the poll, with Rep. Duncan Hunter of California and former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee both at 1 percent.
Meanwhile, the leading Democratic presidential candidates clashed Sunday heading into the slushy New Hampshire homestretch, deriding each others' claims to be the true candidate of change. Clinton told Democratic voters they should elect "a doer, not a talker." Obama countered that his critics are stuck in the politics of the past.
At a raucous rally in a high school gymnasium in Nashua, Clinton skewered Obama for several votes he has cast in the Senate, such as his vote in favor of the Patriot Act and for energy legislation she described as "Dick Cheney's energy bill." She never mentioned Obama's name but left no doubt about whom she was discussing. "You campaign in poetry, you govern in prose," Clinton said.
Obama, speaking at a packed Manchester theater, took issue with Clinton's criticism of him during Saturday's Democratic presidential debate.
"One of my opponents said we can't just, you know, offer the American people false hopes about what we can get done," he said. "The real gamble in this election is to do the same things, with the same folks, playing the same games over and over and over again and somehow expect a different result," he said. "That is a gamble we cannot afford, that is a risk we cannot take. Not this time. Not now. It is time to turn the page."
The rhetoric reflected the potentially pivotal nature of Tuesday's primary. Obama, the freshman Illinois senator, is hoping to sustain momentum from his caucus victory in Iowa, and Clinton is looking to recover from her stinging third-place finish.
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