Washington, Feb 5 (IANS) A day after accusing rival Ted Cruz of stealing the first Republican nomination contest in Iowa by fraud and asking for a rematch in the state, Donald Trump is now focused on the next battle in New Hampshire.

"I'm so much into this, into New Hampshire, that I just - I don't care about that anymore," he told CNN Thursday in Manchester, New Hampshire, five days before the Feb 9 primary contest there. "This is the place I'm focused on now."

The billionaire Republican frontrunner had let loose a tirade of angry tweets accusing the Texas senator of committing "fraud" in Iowa over Cruz campaign's controversial actions over a CNN report about retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson going home for a "change of clothes" after the Iowa caucuses.

Some Cruz allies shared that news widely on the night of the caucuses, including to Carson supporters, but did not include the part about Carson remaining in the race. Cruz has since apologized to Carson.

Trump told CNN Thursday that some "strange things" appeared to have happened in Iowa, and that the Cruz campaign's actions likely hurt him more than Carson.

"I like Ben Carson very much and he got pretty roughed up, frankly," Trump said. "Although it affected me maybe more than Ben." But Trump added: "Who cares?"

He also laughed off Cruz's comment that Trump had thrown a "Trumper-tantrum" after Iowa. "I actually like that phrase," he said. "That's good, I better trademark it."

Meanwhile, after their poor showing in Iowa, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and former Florida governor Jeb Bush have joined forces to discredit Senator Marco Rubio, who finished a strong third in Iowa, according to the New York Times.

Over the last two days Christie has mocked Rubio "as a cosseted 'boy in the bubble,' derided him as 'constantly scripted,' likened him to 'the king of England,' and, perhaps most creatively, compared his Senate career to that of a helpless fourth grader who is told which chair to sit in at school," the Times said.

Christie and Bush's shared concern over the rise of Rubio "has even prompted the opening of a back channel: Members of the Bush and Christie campaigns have communicated about their mutual desire to halt Rubio's rise in the polls," the influential daily said citing Republican operatives familiar with the conversations.

Sanders, Trump lead in the battle of New Hampshire

Four days before the next battle in the US presidential race, Bernie Sanders holds a two to one lead over Hillary Clinton among the Democrats and Donald Trump continues to hold a wide lead among Republicans.

Vermont senator Sanders had the support of 61 percent among likely New Hampshire primary voters as against 30 percent for the former secretary of state in new polls conducted entirely after the Iowa caucuses that the latter won by a razor thin margin.

A new CNN/WMUR tracking poll showed that Sanders's support in the small northeastern state that holds the first in the nation primary on Feb 9 has gone up slightly from the 57 percent he held in a late January CNN/WMUR poll.

Clinton is backed by 30 percent, down a tick from the 34 percent she held before the caucuses. Both changes are within the poll's margin of sampling error.

Clinton won the state's primary during her bid for the 2008 Democratic nomination after polls ahead of the contest showed her trailing then-Senator Barack Obama.

An NBC News/Wall Street/Marist poll conducted after Clinton's narrow apparent win in Monday's Iowa caucuses also gave Sanders a 58 percent-to-38 percent lead over Clinton-essentially unchanged from his last week's 57 percent-to-38 percent margin.

"So far in New Hampshire, it's all Sanders as Clinton faces an uphill fight," said pollster Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion.

On the Republican side, Trump continued to hold a wide lead among likely Republican primary voters in New Hampshire, according to a new CNN/WMUR tracking poll, with the pack vying for second place beginning to break up.

Behind Trump's field-leading 29 percent support, Florida Senator Marco Rubio climbed to second place with 18 percent following his strong third place finish in Iowa, followed by Iowa winner Texas senator Ted Cruz (13 percent) and Ohio governor John Kasich (12 percent) in a near-tie for third.

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush held the fifth place at 10 percent, a hair behind Cruz and Kasich, with New Jersey governor Chris Christie and former HP chief executive Carly Fiorina well behind at 4 percent each.

The fight for second place between Cruz, Rubio and Kasich remained within the survey's margin of sampling error.

Clinton, Sanders spar over progressive label, Wall Street, foreign policy

With the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination reduced to a direct contest between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, the two clashed over foreign policy to Wall Street, but most of all over who was a true progressive.

In the first one-on-one Democratic debate in Durham, New Hampshire Thursday ahead of next Tuesday's primary battle, an angry Clinton accused Sanders of delivering an "artful smear" by suggesting her political favour could be bought by rich donors.

"If you have something to say, say it," Clinton said reacting to Sanders' suggestion that the former secretary of state was a progressive on "some days" and that she could not be a moderate and a progressive at the same time.

Defending herself as a progressive who gets results and has spent decades working on children's rights and health care, she said: "I am not making promises that I can't keep."

Clinton said that by Sanders' definition of progressive politics, there would be nobody left in the movement, including President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.

Sanders hit back by pointing out that Clinton had referred to herself as a moderate at an event in Ohio last year. And he said that Obama and Biden had done a "fantastic job" pulling America back from the Great Recession.

"Do I think President Obama is a progressive? Yes, I do," Sanders said, though he added that he disagreed with the President on the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact.

Sanders billed himself as the true outsider candidate in the race, while suggesting that Clinton was the candidate of the establishment.

He argued that she would never be able to get money out of politics because she has a multimillion-dollar super PAC.

Super PACs are supposedly independent political committees that support a candidate with unlimited, often anonymous, donations from companies, unions, or individuals.

On foreign policy, Clinton sought to deflect criticism over her 2002 vote to authorise the war in Iraq by saying, "A vote in 2002 is not a plan to defeat ISIS."

She argued that it is now more important to defeat the terror group that has taken over vast areas of Iraq and Syria than continue to argue about the roots of the Iraq War.

Sanders countered that the decision on whether to wage war on Iraq was a question of judgment and recalled that he cast an opposite vote to Clinton's while he was a member of the House.

On the controversy surrounding her use of a private email server for official work, Clinton said she was "100 percent confident" that it would not become a problem that derailed her campaign.

"I never sent or received any classified material. They are retroactively classifying it," she said referring to recent disclosures that some of the emails on her server would not be released because they contain information classified "top secret."

"I think the American people will know that it's an absurdity. I have absolutely no concerns about it whatsoever."

Sanders said that he had declined chances to attack Clinton on the issue as "There's a process underway. I will not politicize it."

According to the latest polls Sanders has a two to one lead (61 percent-to-30 percent) over Clinton in New Hampshire, but she leads him 51.8 percent to 36.3 percent nationally

(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)