MANCHESTER — Former president Bill Clinton will visit New Hampshire to warm up supporters of President Barack Obama for the first debate of the general election campaign next Wednesday.

Clinton will be in the state Wednesday for at least one grassroots event at a location yet to be announced. It’s unclear if he will watch the first of three debates between Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney in New Hampshire.

“President Clinton has more credibility on the campaign trail than anyone else as a former President who faced similar economic and political challenges and pursued a similar path as President Obama, and he has offered to do as much as he can to help the President get re-elected,” said an Obama campaign official.

He was most recently in New Hampshire on July 25 to endorse Democrat Maggie Hassan for governor at a rally in Nashua. Word of Clinton’s visit comes as a new NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll of about 1,600 likely New Hampshire voters showed Obama leading Romney, 51 to 44 percent. The poll’s margin of error is 2.7 percent.

The same poll shows the state’s two major candidates for governor in a statistical dead heat, with Hassan leading Republican Ovide Lamontagne, 47 to 45 percent.

jdistaso@unionleader.com