Manchester – Hillary Clinton and John McCain remain the top picks of their respective party's New Hampshire primary voters, according to a poll taken this week by a Granite State polling firm.

Twenty-seven percent of likely Democratic primary voters favored Clinton, a New York senator, in the telephone poll. The Manchester-based American Research Group conducted the poll from Dec. 26-27.

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, who brought his rock-star-like aura to New Hampshire earlier this month, scored second with 21 percent. Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, who announced his candidacy for the nomination yesterday, came in third with 18 percent.

None of the other eight mentioned in the poll scored higher than 6 percent.

On the Republican side, 29 percent favored Arizona Sen. McCain. His closest rival was former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani at 25 percent. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich received 14 percent and outgoing Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney got 9 percent.

Both polls had a sample size of 600 and a 4 percent margin of error.

The poll broke down the support of each candidate among registered party members and independents.

Obama edged out Clinton among Democratic-voting independents, 25 to 24 percent. Clinton had a strong 28-to-20-percent lead over Obama among registered Democrats.

McCain topped rivals among both registered Republicans and Republican-voting independents. Nearly all of Gingrich's support is from registered Republicans; he received only 1 percent of independent support. And at 27 percent, independents favored Giuliani slightly more than Republicans did, at 24 percent.

►American Research Group's web site