MANCHESTER, New Hampshire - Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney won the New Hampshire Republican US presidential primary on Tuesday by a comfortable margin in the second nominating contest of the 2012 election season, CNN projected.

The network said with more than 10 percent of the vote counted, Romney won 36 percent of the vote and congressman Ron Paul was second with 25 percent.

The primary in New Hampshire, a small northeastern US state that often plays an outsized role in presidential campaigns, is the second contest in the state-by-state battle for the Republican nomination to face Democratic President Barack Obama on November 6. Romney narrowly won the first contest, the Iowa caucuses, on January 3.

Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney gives a thumbs up while visiting a polling station in Manchester, New Hampshire Jan 10, 2012. [Photo/Agencies]