Romney Beats Santorum to Take Iowa by 8 Votes
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney won the Iowa Republican presidential caucuses by a mere eight votes over former U.S. senator Rick Santorum, a party official said on Wednesday.
Tuesday's Iowa caucuses were the first contest in the state-by-state battle for the Republican presidential nomination to face Democratic President Barack Obama on November 6.
Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney waged a seesaw battle for supremacy in Iowa's Republican presidential caucuses late Tuesday night, a dramatic opening round for the campaign to pick a challenger to President Barack Obama.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a leader in opinion polls at one point, finished a distant fifth and said he would return to his home state "to determine whether there is a path forward" for his White House aspirations.
Texas Rep. Ron Paul finished third, not far behind the front-runners.
Returns from 97 percent of the state's precincts showed Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, and Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, in a near dead heat, a fitting conclusion to a race as jumbled as any since Iowa gained the lead-off position in presidential campaigns four decades ago.
New Hampshire votes next, and Romney is heavily favored in the first-in-the-nation primary on Jan. 10.
South Carolina on Jan. 21 figures to be a tougher test, the first contest in the South and a state that is part of the Republican political base.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was headed for a fourth-place finish. Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann was far behind.
Her campaign manager, Keith Nahigian, suggested she might drop out, but she seemed to signal otherwise a short while later.
"I believe that I am the true conservative who can and who will defeat Barack Obama in 2012," she declared.
Doug Heye, a spokesman for the state party, said the ballots were counted under the supervision of campaign representatives who certified the totals.
He said the numbers were double-checked when they were reported to state officials and there was no reason to check them again.
"On to New Hampshire," Gingrich said to the cheers of his supporters, vowing to carry on his campaign no matter the Iowa outcome. The former speaker led in the pre-caucus polls as recently as a few weeks ago, only to fall under the weight of attack ads run by a super PAC run by allies of Romney.
Paul, too, said he was looking forward to the nation's first primary in a week's time, telling supporters his was one of two campaigns with the resources to do the distance.
"There's going to be an election up in New Hampshire, and believe me this momentum is going to continue and this movement is going to continue and we are going to keep scoring," he told supporters.
The Texas lawmaker didn't say so, but the other campaign already built for a long campaign was Romney's.
The former Massachusetts governor was closeted with aides and his family as he sweated out the caucus count in a state that humbled him four years ago. This time, win or lose, he appeared destined to draw a smaller share of the vote than the 25.2 percent he did then.
Each of the three in the top tier strove to create a distinct identity and brought a different style to the race.
Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator, ran the old-fashioned way, spending parts or all of 250 days campaigning in the state in hopes of emerging aeuro" as he did in the campaign's final week aeuro" as the preferred conservative alternative to Romney.
Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, brought organization and money to the table, and was aided by deep-pocketed allies who ran television commercials attacking former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and others.
That allowed Romney to take the high road in person, running as a former businessman who knew how to create jobs and defeat Obama.
Paul, the Texas congressman, was something of a blend of the two approaches, with money and organization. He drew on the support of younger caucus-goers with a libertarian-leaning approach that included a call to legalize marijuana and bring home U.S. troops from overseas.
Whichever among the three eventually finished ahead, it appeared likely the winner's share of the vote would be a record low for GOP caucuses in the state. Former Sen. Bob Dole had 26.3 percent support in 1996, when he won.
This time, the economy and the federal budget deficit were top issues, judged more important than abortion or health care, according to a survey of early caucus-goers.
Nearly a third of those surveyed said they most wanted a candidate who could defeat Obama, and those favored Romney as a group.
Paul and Santorum split the votes of the one in four who called the selection of a true conservative their top priority, and the former Pennsylvania senator also made a strong showing among those who said their top priority was a candidate with a strong moral character as well as among late deciders.
Paul had an edge among younger and first-time caucus goers.
