Update 7:50pm Eastern 1/8. McCain grabs an early lead. Polls close at 8pm Eastern.

Update 6:14pm Eastern 1/8. Obama is scooping up with independents.
New Hampshire is turning into “Blue Hampshire.”

Update 5:05pm Eastern 1/8. Town-by-town results will be here.

Update 1:16pm Eastern 1/8. NH Dems are running out of ballots. Good news for Obama, bad news for McCain, muses Bob Owens.

Update 11:33am Eastern 1/8. Looking for exit polls? Read this.

Update 10:45am Eastern 1/8. The Union-Leader reports large turnout this morning: “Louis Gosselin, Ward 6 moderator, said election officials expected about 150 people to vote each hour at St. Pius X on Candia Road. Instead, about 300 people each hour were casting ballots. By 8 a.m., 602 people had voted. About 70 new voters were registered. ‘I believe if it continues this way we definitely will set a record,’ said Gosselin.”

Update 8:02am Eastern 1/8. The latest.

Update 12:40am Eastern. Here are the results from Hart’s location.

GOP

Romney - 1
Paul - 14
Huckabee - 5
McCain - 6

Dem

Edwards -1
Clinton - 3
Obama - 9

In Dixville, the party breakdown was: three registered Republicans, one Democrat and 12 undeclareds. In Hart’s Location, there were eight Democrats, eight Republicans and 13 undeclareds.

Update 12:11am Eastern. Here ya go…for what it’s worth…McCain and Obama win Dixville Notch.

Dixville Notch votes:

GOP

Giuliani - 1
Romney - 2
McCain - 4

Dem

Richardson - 1
Edwards - 2
Obama - 7

Hillary got iced out. Get her a Kleenex, stat!

Meanwhile, Huck hangs with David Letterman. He does seem to enjoy rubbing elbows with celebrities.

***

Voting in the NH primary begins when the clock strikes 12. The famous town of Dixville Notch kicks things off at midnight, along with the tiny hamlet of Hart’s Location. Jim Geraghty calls Dixville Notch “quaint, but not predictive.” The Manchester Union Leader is keeping tabs on its primary blog.

Stay tuned for results.

12:02am Eastern. 17 voters in Dixville Notch have cast their ballots.

Some poll numbers from the U-L while we wait…

The polls

* Are the Republican polls correct? Will John McCain win the primary and set himself up as the national front-runner? He was on the ropes last summer, when he fired top staffers as his campaign ran out of money. But he then reverted to his successful 2000 strategy, focused on New Hampshire and held at least 100 town meetings.

Last night’s CNN/WMUR tracking poll showed McCain with a 31 to 26 percent lead over Mitt Romney, with Mike Huckabee at 13 percent and Giuliani and Ron Paul now tied at 10 percent each. But Rasmussen had McCain with only a 1 percentage point lead over Romney, 32 to 31 percent.

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