Iowa Caucuses: Romney and Santorum in Virtual Tie
Linda Young

Des Moines, IA

Iowa Republicans have voted, barely choosing former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as the winner of the state's caucus and first primary election in the 2012 presidential race. The too-close-to-call race was a genuine nail-biter, with former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum losing by less than one percent of the vote after hours of counting. Each candidate received 25 percent of the vote and the result was the closest political contest in state history.

Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) finished a close third place with 21 percent, followed by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich with 13 percent. Texas Gov. Rick Perry was a distant fifth, with barely 10 percent of the vote. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), who won Iowa's Ames Republican Straw Poll in August, came in sixth with only 5 percent of the vote. Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman didn't participate in Iowa, and scored about 1 percent.

"We're essentially three winners," Paul declared to supporters in Iowa. Indeed, Gingrich, Paul, Romney, and Santorum will all go on to live another day, each claiming their own momentum leaving the Hawk Eye State. However, news from the Perry camp says the Texas governor will retreat to the Lone Star state to "reassess" his campaign after his distant showing in Iowa.

Next up is the New Hampshire primary election on Tuesday January, 10. After New Hampshire, the political calendar heats up with an open primary in South Carolina (January 21), a closed primary in Florida (January 31), and a caucus in Nevada (February 4).

"The Republican party is seriously fractured. Each of the leading three candidates represents a very different segment of the GOP," explained Taegan Goddard, political author and the creator of the influential blog PoliticalWire. "It's clear Romney seriously misplayed the expectations game."

"There's no one who is going to say they won a decisive victory," CNN's chief national correspondent John King said Tuesday night.

In 2008, then-Sen. Barack Obama and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee won Iowa. Obama went on to become the Democratic presidential nominee and make history as America's first African-American president. Huckabee lost the Republican nomination to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). The election wasn't nearly as close.