CONCORD, N.H. — In an increasingly fractured Republican race, three top presidential hopefuls fanned out across New Hampshire on Monday, with Mitt Romney seeking to downplay expectations, John McCain basking in key endorsements and Rudolph W. Giuliani pressing his case to siphon votes from Romney, the leader here.
McCain was joined at his first stop by Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, the former Democratic vice presidential candidate turned independent, who officially endorsed the Arizona senator Monday.
McCain's campaign hopes the endorsement will broaden his appeal to independent voters, who can register to vote on election day in either primary. Such voters helped boost McCain to an 18-point victory here over George W. Bush in 2000.
He received the backing over the weekend of New Hampshire's Portsmouth Herald, the Boston Globe and the Des Moines Register, although he has placed less emphasis on Iowa's Jan. 3 caucuses.
With his efforts heavily concentrated on New Hampshire, where ballots will be cast five days later, McCain has managed to rebuild some support after hitting a low this summer when his once-dominant campaign sank to fourth place in the state behind Romney, Giuliani and former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee.
Many core Republican voters here were turned off by his push for legislation that would have created a path to citizenship for some of the nation's more than 12 million illegal immigrants. But McCain has since explained to voters, as he did in Concord on Monday night, that he moved too hastily on those plans without first making sure the borders were secure.
Some think that revised message and positive headlines about the "surge" in Iraq, which he backed, are helping draw voters into his camp.
Though McCain is jockeying with Giuliani for second place here, some 10 points behind Romney, few political analysts are discounting the possibility of a McCain resurgence.
"This is where the Iowa factor, the electability factor, comes in," said Andrew E. Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. "If Romney gets beaten in Iowa, the perception of him as being an electable candidate is going to drop."
Despite his lead in New Hampshire, Romney suggested that even a second-place finish here would not mark the end of his campaign.
