The Trail Less Traveled

MANCHESTER, N.H. — A modest line for new registrants, most under 40, formed in the Ward 3 polling location here early Thursday evening, as election officials and activists reported heavy turnout.

Voters interviewed exiting the polls in this blue-collar area, just blocks from media encampments along Elm Street, tilted heavily Democratic.

But they split, sometimes within the same household, over Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton .

Mike and Carrie DeBlasi revealed their divergent votes: husband for Clinton and wife for Obama.

“It was a tough decision,” Mike DeBlasi said. If he had been asked a few weeks ago, he said, “I don’t think I would have hesitated.”

In the end, Clinton is “most ready,” he said.

Many Clinton supporters expressed admiration for Obama, a feeling that was not always reciprocated.

“She’s either loved or hated,” said Carol Andrews, a 47-year-old paralegal who voted for Clinton based in part on her stance on providing coverage for the uninsured.

Steven Hulett, a funeral director, picked Obama because of his “fresh approach.”

But at least one voter who typically sides with Democrats handed in a Republican ballot.

Alyssa Downey, 31, voted for Ron Paul because of his opposition to the Iraq war.

“The man I love is there for the second time around,” she said. For good measure, she wrote in Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who led Democratic criticism of the war before it started, for vice president.