As the presidential election moves here on Friday, many New Hampshire voters remain undecided about the candidate.

“I am a registered Democrat, and I will vote a Democrat,” Maura Willing said, who is a homemaker. “But I don’t know whom I am going to settle for.”

Estes, who is self-employed, has been an undeclared voter all his life. But this time, he is leaning toward the Democrats. He hopes to see the two leading candidates — Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama — as a team pitted against Republicans in the general election in November.

Obama and Clinton are running close to each other in opinion polls. In a poll by a local newspaper in Concord, Obama was leading last month by just one per cent. The poll found 32 per cent of likely Democratic primary voters surveyed backed Obama, 31 per cent were with Clinton, and 18 per cent were for John Edwards, the third leading Democratic candidate.

But New Hampshire has a sizeable population of independent voters. Among those voters, 40 per cent are likely to vote for Obama compared to 23 per cent for Clinton, according to the survey.

Issues in this election are clear for most voters in Concord — healthcare, petrol prices and border security. Unlike past elections, foreign policy is surging as a concern among some voters. They express concern that Iraq has done much damage to the image of their country, and they need a President to repair that.

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