Decision time in New Hampshire

Time is running out for New Hampshire voters in the Republican presidential primary.

As the final hour of voting draws near, Manchester’s chilly streets were still lined by supporters cheering the name of their candidates, their signs barely visible in the dark. They were joined by activists supporting Occupy New Hampshire, the legalization of marijuana and President Obama’s reelection.

At Mitt Romney’s election-night party at Southern New Hampshire University, supporters descended from seemingly every direction to cheer on a candidate who could be on the precipice of a major victory. Polls show Romney could pull out a double-digit win on Tuesday night. 

{mosads}Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) could be seen arriving at the event about an hour and a half before polls closed.

One of Romney’s sons, Tagg, tweeted that his father was heading to the movies Tuesday afternoon.

“Nothing left to do, so heading to mission impossible and muppets w the family,” he tweeted, attaching a photo of the former Massachusetts governor surrounded by young children at a movie theater.

“My gut is,” said Paul Yarmo of Hudson, N.H., who traveled 20 miles north to
Manchester with his wife to be there for what he called Romney’s big
night, “from people I’ve been taking to, that independents and undecideds are breaking toward Mitt.

“He’s the only one who can get rid of Obama, and I think it’s going to be over soon.”

Jon Huntsman was still campaigning for votes a few hours before polls closed, doing drive-time radio interviews, according to spokesman Tim Miller.

The former Utah governor, who has staked all of his hopes on a strong finish in the Granite State, stopped with his family at the Red Arrow diner earlier in the day to get some lunch, following their visit to a Manchester polling place.

The Huntsman election-night party, taking place at The Black Brimmer, was packed with journalists. On Elm Street, the main street in downtown Manchester where most of the candidates have their New Hampshire campaign offices, cars honked as they drove by the party location. A truck, pulling a trailer stacked with Rick Santorum signs, also drove by.

Surveys from the American Research Group and Suffolk University both have Romney leading the rest of the GOP field by 19 points.

Newt Gingrich spent the last day of campaigning in the state attacking Romney, saying his “real goal” was to slow the Republican front-runner’s momentum.

“My real goal was to make sure that Romney did not win here by a big enough margin to develop real momentum,” Gingrich said Tuesday in an interview on Fox.

The statement drew ire from the right, including from conservative talk radio stalwart Rush Limbaugh.

Santorum, who finished a close second last week in Iowa, also lit into Romney. He said that Romney’s comments about liking “being able to fire people who provide me services” was likely not “a very good message” to voters.

But Santorum was sympathetic to Romney’s insistence that the quote was taken out of context. 

“It was certainly an inarticulate way of phrasing what he wanted to phrase, but it’s a little bit of a ‘gotcha,’ ” Santorum said.

Earlier in the day, New Hampshire Deputy Secretary of State David Scanlan told The Hill that the voting process was going smoothly. “We’re hearing out there that the turnout is steady. There aren’t any lines backing up, but it’s just a constant movement of people through the polling places,” he said.

Scanlan’s office said it was expecting 250,000 voters in the GOP primary, as well as 75,000 voters in the Democratic primary where Obama is running virtually unopposed.

The last polls close in New Hampshire at 8 p.m. ET.

Jonathan Easley contributed.