Insurgents Trump and Sanders seek lift at New Hampshire primary

By James Oliphant and Amanda Becker MANCHESTER, N.H. (Reuters) - Insurgent candidates in the 2016 U.S. presidential race, billionaire Republican Donald Trump and Democratic socialist Bernie Sanders, sought to lift their campaigns on Tuesday at the New Hampshire primary elections by defeating mainstream rivals. Riding a wave of voter anger at traditional politicians, the two men held big leads over their respective opponents in New Hampshire, the second state in the process of picking party nominees for the Nov. 8 election to replace President Barack Obama. The polls were to close at 7 p.m. EST (0000 GMT) and New Hampshire officials predicted a historic high turnout of about 550,000 as long lines of voters formed at polling stations. Real estate magnate Trump is under pressure to deliver a victory after he was beaten in the first nominating contest - the Iowa caucuses last week - by Texas Senator Ted Cruz despite having had a big lead in opinion polls. Trump's rivals were dueling for second place in New Hampshire as the last undecided voters made up their minds. Ohio Governor John Kasich, who held more than 100 town hall events in the state, appeared to be getting some of the late deciders but Cruz, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio from Florida and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie also felt good about their chances. On the Democratic side, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton fought to keep it close against Sanders, a U.S. senator from neighboring Vermont who was way ahead of her in opinion polls in New Hampshire. Despite being the front-runner to win the Democratic nomination, Clinton's razor-thin victory in Iowa made her look vulnerable and a double-digit loss to Sanders in New Hampshire would add pressure on her. Preliminary exit poll results on Tuesday showed independent voters accounted for about four in 10 voters in both Democratic and Republican contests, according to ABC News. Independent voters wield special clout in New Hampshire because they can vote in either party's primary. Nearly half of Republican voters in the exit polls said they wanted a non-establishment candidate, and had only made up their mind about their vote in the last few days, ABC said. About a quarter of Democratic voters said they sought a candidate from outside the establishment. A WMUR-CNN poll on Monday showed Trump leading in New Hampshire with the support of 31 percent of those planning to vote in the Republican primary. Rubio was second at 17 percent, followed by Cruz at 14 percent and Kasich at 10 percent. Rubio needs to follow up his strong third-place showing in Iowa with a top-tier finish in the northeastern state to bolster his argument that he is the mainstream candidate around whom the party's leadership and wealthy donors should rally. But a shaky debate performance by foreign policy hawk Rubio on Saturday night came at a bad time. Rubio aides insisted no harm was done and that his crowds were as big as ever. Trump, who has courted controversy by deriding Mexican immigrants and promising to ban Muslims from entering the United States, spent the final campaign hours in New Hampshire insulting his rivals. In an interview with MSNBC, he called Rubio "confused," Bush a "loser," Clinton "evil" and Cruz "nasty." At a campaign event on Monday, the former reality TV star gleefully repeated an audience member's description of Cruz as a "pussy" because Cruz said he was more hesitant than Trump about supporting torturing the country's captured enemies. "Nothing Donald says surprises anyone," Cruz said as he visited a polling station. "He didn’t like that he lost in Iowa." At a polling station in the town of Derry on Tuesday morning, Clinton bumped into the husband of former Hewlett-Packard CEO Fiorina, who has repeatedly derided Clinton's marriage to former U.S. President Bill Clinton as loveless. "Well, give my best to Carly," Clinton said to Frank Fiorina after they had swapped pleasantries about the marvels of democracy. "Want to get a picture?" They grinned for cameras. (Writing by Roberta Rampton, Steve Holland and James Oliphant; Additional reporting by Jonathan Allen, Susan Heavey and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Toni Reinhold, Alistair Bell and Bill Trott)