(AP):

New Hampshire voters twice supported John McCain, helping him trounce President George W. Bush in the state's 2000 primary and giving him a stunning comeback last January that helped propel him to the Republican presidential nomination.

But now McCain is trailing Obama in the polls there, and both candidates are in hot pursuit of the state's four electoral votes.

McCain makes his fifth visit to the state today since locking up the nomination as he seeks to eke out a win in America's state-by-state process of voting for president. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the election.

Retired Postmaster Marge Bonneville, a lifelong Republican from Tilton, voted for John McCain in the 2000 primary and wrote him in on her general election ballot after he lost the nomination to Bush.

She did the same four years later when McCain wasn't even running.

No to Mccain

For a while after Democrat Barack Obama won her over last year, she still thought she could live with having McCain as president. Not anymore.

"I look at McCain now and say, 'How can anyone want him as our president?'" Bonneville said. This year, she has changed her registration to undeclared and is volunteering for Obama's campaign in New Hampshire.

But McCain still has his supporters in a state where voters arguably know him as well if not better than his constituents back home in Arizona.

Andy Collins, a carpenter from Walpole, was torn between McCain and Obama just before the primary, but voted for the Republican and will do so again in November.

He called Obama a gifted speaker, but said with the nation at war and a son headed to Afghanistan, he wants McCain, a Vietnam veteran who is perceived to be strong on international affairs, in the White House.

Political consultant Dean Spiliotes says McCain's strong ties to the state are based on mutual recognition of the importance of face-to-face politics.

McCain is trailing Obama in the New Hampshire polls, and both candidates are in hot pursuit of the state's four electoral votes.