MANCHESTER – With polls yo-yoing on the eve of the New Hampshire primary, there's a chance of a photo finish for the Republican and Democratic front-runners.

Polls by the University of New Hampshire and Rasmussen Reports show Republican John McCain ahead of Mitt Romney and Democrat Barack Obama with a healthy lead over Hillary Clinton.

However, a Suffolk University poll found Romney ahead of McCain, 30 percent to 27 percent, and Clinton ahead of Obama, 35 percent to 33 percent. And Franklin Pierce University had Clinton leading Obama 32 percent to 28 percent. McCain held a 6-point lead over Romney in that poll.

UNH pollster Andrew Smith said the race is still very fluid, with about half of the electorate still undecided.

"The race is still very much in flux," he said in releasing the poll last night.

The Cinderella story would appear to be the surge of Republican Ron Paul, according to the Rasmussen survey. That poll shows the Libertarian-leaning congressman from Texas neck and neck with Mike Huckabee for third at 11 percent, with Rudy Giuliani in fifth with 9 percent.

Paul is fifth in the UNH poll, known as the CNN/WMUR presidential tracking poll, but he is within the margin of error to be statistically tied for third.

Obama's bounce from his victory in the Iowa caucus, combined with the latest tracking polls, had political observers sizing the Democratic race now as a matter of Clinton lowering her expectations. She and her campaign yesterday were reminding reporters the first-in-the-nation primary is just that, the first primary, and that she would fight on to capture the nomination.

Democrat John Edwards was firmly in third in all four of these polls.

Smith, a political science professor and director of the UNH Survey Center in Durham, said the poll suggests New Hampshire Democrats believe "change" is more important than experience in 2008.

Huckabee attracted large crowds yesterday, but a handful of polls yesterday indicated he has yet to parlay his Iowa caucus into more support in New Hampshire. The Suffolk University poll, for Channel 7, and the Franklin Pierce University poll, for WBZ-TV, had Huckabee in fifth place.

The UNH poll, conducted Saturday and Sunday, had Obama at 39, Clinton at 29, and Edwards at 16. Among Republicans, it was McCain with 32 percent, Romney at 26, and Huckabee at 14 percent.

For details on individual polls, click the links below. Unless otherwise indicated, all polls were released on Sunday.