(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-01-08 08:50

NASHUA, New Hampshire: Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton battled to keep crucial New Hampshire from swinging to rising rival Barack Obama on Sunday but new polls showed 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.

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.

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 today.

A USA Today/Gallup poll said Obama had opened up a 13-point lead over Clinton in New Hampshire, 41 percent to 28 percent, to 19 percent for former North Carolina Senator John Edwards.

A WMUR/CNN poll showed Obama leading Clinton, 39 percent to 29 percent.

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 Clinton campaign also complained of the Obama camp making automated prerecorded calls to New Hampshire residents who had registered on an official "do not call" list, a practice that would violate state law. The Obama campaign dismissed the complaint and said no law was broken.

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