US Democratic presidential hopeful Mr Howard Dean is looking to next week's New Hampshire primary to recoup last night's stunning loss in Iowa.
After finishing a distant third behind Massachusetts Senator John Kerry and Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, Mr Dean flew directly to New Hampshire, which holds its primary on January 27th.
"I would love to come in first but you only have to come in the top three," he told several hundred cheering supporters at a predawn airport rally in Portsmouth.
He cited as examples Mr Bill Clinton, who won the presidency after losing Iowa, and Mr Michael Dukakis who also lost in the Mid-West state but went on to become the Democratic nominee. "Guess what, let's go get 'em," the former Vermont governor said. "We have hardly begun to fight."
"I used to be the front-runner when I went out to Iowa but I'm not the front-runner anymore," mR Dean said. "New Hampshire has a great tradition of supporting the underdog."
Mr Dean holds a slim lead over Mr Kerry and retired general Wesley Clark in polls for the New Hampshire primary and has led the field in national surveys of Democratic voters.
In the first test in Iowa on the road to find a challenger to President George W. Bush, Mr Kerry won 38 per cent and Mr Edwards scored a surprise second-place finish with 32 per cent of the vote. Mr Dean and Missouri's Richard Gephardt trailed badly with 18 and 11 per cent, respectively.
Mr Gephardt gave up his race for the presidency. That left seven Democrats vying for the right to challenge President Bush in the November 2nd presidential election.