Mitt Romney's Lead Over Ron Paul in N.H. Dwindles but is Still Solid

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has been leading the daily tracking poll from Suffolk University/7News of likely New Hampshire Republican primary voters -- but that lead is shrinking. In the latest one, released on Monday morning, Romney still leads with 33 percent while U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas takes second with 20 percent. Romney had been pulling as high as 43 percent last week.

With the primary on Tuesday night, most pundits expect Romney to win and Paul to place second. The battle in third remains up for grabs. In the Suffolk poll, former Gov. Jon Huntsman of Utah takes 13 percent followed by former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich with 11 percent and former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania with 10 percent. Former Gov. Buddy Roemer of Louisiana takes 2 percent while Gov. Rick Perry of Texas follows with 1 percent and activist Fred Karger takes less than 1 percent.

Mitt Romneys biggest asset is the large number of candidates in this group that are dividing up the remainder of the vote, said David Paleologos, the director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center. With just a 33 percent stake, he can control his destiny, so long as the others in his group continue to battle each other. So the more people in the group, the merrier for Romney.

The poll of 500 likely New Hampshire Republican primary voters was taken on Jan. 7-8 and had a margin of +/- 4.4 percent.