By Xinhua
Washington : US Senator Hillary Clinton has maintained her leading position in New Hampshire among her fellow Democratic contenders vying for the presidency next year, since the Democratic presidential debate in the state on June 3.
A new CNN/WMUR poll of New Hampshire Democratic primary voters released Tuesday showed that Clinton, a senator from New York, had 36 percent of the support, while Barack Obama, a senator from Illinois, had 22 percent.
John Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina, who had 12 percent, followed Obama.
The poll was conducted June 6-10, three days after the June 3 debate, which was sponsored by the CNN, the WMUR and the New Hampshire Union Leader. New Hampshire would hold the first Democratic primary on January 22, 2008.
In early April, the three Democratic front-runners were closely matched in New Hampshire. Clinton was supported by 27 percent of those polled, Edwards by 21 percent, and Obama 20 percent.
Bill Richardson, governor of New Mexico, got a jump from the debate, and his support rose from 4 percent in early April to 10 percent.
Former vice president Al Gore, who has not announced his candidacy, got 12 percent of the support, almost unchanged from the 11 percent in the April poll.
If Gore was not in the race, Clinton led other candidates in New Hampshire with 39 percent of the support, followed by Obama with 24 percent, Edwards with 14 percent and Richardson with 11 percent.
As much as 57 percent of Democrats in the state said the war in Iraq was the most important issue for their vote in the presidential primary, up from 39 percent in April.
The poll was conducted among 309 New Hampshire adults who planned to vote in the Democratic primary, the first in the country, and had a margin of error at plus or minus six percentage points.