Polls show Obama surging in NH

Polls taken after Thursday's Iowa Caucuses are showing a significant 13-point lead opening up in New Hampshire for Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton, with Edwards trailing. On the Republican side, Sen. John McCain has a much smaller lead over Romney and Huckabee.

We're only 36 hours from the start of the New Hampshire Primaries, so it's likely that these polls will get a huge amount of play during Monday's news cycle. There are a couple ways that this may impact the voting, such as a close race energizing the supporters, or a wider lead perhaps giving the impression that the race is already over.

I'll be watching this closely and see if there's any interesting trends that develop over the course of the day tomorrow.

From USA Today:

Sen. Barack Obama has opened up a 13 percentage point lead over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the battle for votes in Tuesday's New Hampshire primary, according to a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll conducted in the state from Friday through this afternoon. The results were just released.

On the Republican side, Sen. John McCain is 4 percentage points ahead of Mitt Romney.

The surveys of 776 New Hampshire residents who are "likely" to vote in the Republican primary and 778 New Hampshire residents who are "likely" to vote in the Democratic primary were all completed after the news from Thursday's Iowa caucuses had been reported.

The rundowns:

Democrats

• Obama: 41%; up from 32% in the last USA TODAY/Gallup New Hampshire poll, taken in mid-December.
• Clinton: 28%; down from 32%.
• John Edwards: 19%; up from 18%.
• Gov. Bill Richardson: 6%; down from 8%.
• No one else above 3%.

Republicans

• McCain: 34%; up from 27% in mid-December.
• Romney: 30%; down from 34%.
• Mike Huckabee: 13%; up from 9%.
• Rep. Ron Paul: 8%; down from 9%.
• Rudy Giuliani: 8%; down from 11%.
• No one else above 3%.

Each figure has a margin of error of +/- 4 percentage points. So Obama's lead is "outside" that range, while McCain's is not.

A new CNN/WMUR poll gives Obama a 10-point advantage over Clinton, and has McCain leading Romney by 6 points.