A new WMUR/University of New Hampshire poll finds President Obama leading Mitt Romney in the Granite state by nine points, 51% to 42%.

First Read: “Much of the southern part of the state is essentially a suburb of Boston. And what these poll numbers suggest is that Republicans are struggling in the ‘burbs. So if Romney’s down in New Hampshire, that also means he’s trailing in Northern Virginia and the Philly suburbs.”

A Dartmouth poll last week showed Romney with a two point lead.

Newt Gingrich suggested he “may withdraw from the presidential race if he has a poor showing in the Delaware primary Tuesday — a state where he has been actively campaigning for several weeks,” NBC News reports.

Said Gingrich: “I think we need to take a deep look at what we are doing.”

A new Merrill/Morrison Institute poll in Arizona finds Mitt Romney barely leading President Obama in a general election match up, 42% to 40%, with another 18% undecided.

Said pollster Bruce Merrill: “The eventual outcome also may be dependent on whether former Surgeon General Richard Carmona can mount a vigorous campaign for retiring Sen. John Kyl’s seat, a campaign that would stimulate turnout in the Hispanic community. While I think if the election were held today Romney probably would win, it appears Obama can mount a competitive campaign in Arizona.”

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) told Fox News that his party faces a “real challenge” in holding on to its majority in the House.

Said Boehner: “We have 50 of our members in tough races, 89 freshmen running for their first reelections and we have 32 districts that are in states where there is no presidential campaign going to be run, no big Senate race and we call these orphan districts. You take 18 of them, California, Illinois and New York, where you know we’re not likely to do well at the top of the ticket and those districts are frankly pretty vulnerable.”

He added: “I would say that there is a two in three chance that we win control of the House again but there’s a one in three chance that we could lose and I’m being myself, frank. We’ve got a big challenge and we’ve got work to do.”

The law firm where former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (I) works, gave $50,000 to a pro-Obama Super PAC, the Tampa Bay Times reports.

The head of the firm is “a big time Democratic donor” but the donation also “adds a layer to Crist’s political conversion, from Republican governor to independent candidate for U.S. Senate to talked about Democratic candidate for governor.”

Edward Luce: “By this stage in the 1984 election, Ronald Reagan was proclaiming ‘Morning in America’. Barack Obama has so far had no such opportunity. Unlike the sharp rebound from the brutal recession of Reagan’s first term, today’s recovery has yet to break through dawn. It began just under three years ago. Most Americans say they feel no different.”

“Nor has Mr Obama found a good catchline to frame his side of the story. Last year he picked the slogan: ‘Winning the future’. It quickly vanished. In his State of the Union address this year, he switched to ‘An America built to last’ — and that was pretty much the last that was heard of it. He has yet to find a campaign theme that is built to last.”

Former Rep. Cynthia McKinney is preparing to run for her old House district on the Green Party ticket, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports.

A “lightning-rod political figure,” McKinney was defeated in 2006 by Hank Johnson (D) “after a much-publicized run-in with a U.S. Capitol police officer and her accusations that the Bush administration may have known beforehand about the 9/11 terrorist attacks.”

“If Rubio passes the vetting process, assuming he does, I think he’s the obvious choice. And if he says he doesn’t want the office, he’ll find a horse’s head in his bed. The next day he will accept. Romney’s not going to take no for an answer. We have ways, we Republicans.”

— Charles Krauthammer, on Inside Washington.

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