Congrats, Mitt. Now get your pink slips out.
5:03 PM PT: By the way, in case it's not obvious, all the news networks are reporting this. We still don't know what the final vote totals will be, or what the exact order of finish will be.
5:05 PM PT (kos): John Sununu, former NH Senator, says that Newt Gingrich is guilty of "socialist attacks against Mitt Romney". They're a parody of themselves.
5:07 PM PT (David Nir): The (first batch of?) exit polls project out to:
Romney 36
Paul 23
Huntsman 18
Gingrich 10
Santorum 10
5:10 PM PT (kos): Oh yeah, Obama won the Democratic primary.
5:11 PM PT (kos): Romney needed 40 percent to meet expectations. If he gets closer to 36 percent, as projected from exit polls, that'll be a pathetic performance in what is essentially home turf.
5:12 PM PT (kos): CNN projects that Ron Paul will finish second.
5:13 PM PT (David Nir): As Markos noted, Romney is almost certainly not going to hit 40%, unless the exit polls change quite a bit. He did manage to his his mark in Concord, where he needed 32%. Most of the other larger towns haven't reported yet, though.
5:14 PM PT (kos):
5:17 PM PT (David Nir): Rick Perry finally edged ahead of Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry's Dem primary performance. Good for him.
5:20 PM PT (kos): So check it -- Romney looks to fall well short fo 40 percent, and now has to weather a full on assault for eleven days in a much more hostile South Carolina. The nomination will be decided there. Either Romney survives, wins, and coasts to the nomination, or Santorum comes back strong and makes a longer race of it.
5:22 PM PT (Kaili Joy Gray): The liveblogging continues in the next thread.