Romney Nips Santorum in Iowa Showdown

By Martha T. Moore and Carolyn Pesce, USA TODAY

CONCORD, N.H. – Iowa caucus winner Mitt Romney campaigned in New Hampshire on Wednesday, as attention shifted to a two-man race after Rick Santorum's explosive rise and near win in the first contest for the presidential nomination.

Romney won Iowa's Republican presidential caucuses by the narrowest of margins, the state's party chairman declared early Wednesday, finishing eight votes ahead of Santorum.  Michele Bachmann, who came in sixth, ended her campaign. Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who came in fifth, went home to decide whether to stay in the race and later tweeted that he was bound for South Carolina.

Most of the talk on Wednesday centered on the battle between Romney and Santorum. Even former House speaker Newt Gingrich couldn't stop talking about Romney. Gingrich, who came in fourth after Texas congressman Ron Paul, laced into Romney at a campaign appearance Wednesday in Concord, N.H.  He told news reporters his New Hampshire campaign would focus on "the contrast between a Massachusetts moderate and a Reagan conservative," calling Romney a liberal who "repudiated Reagan-Bush, voted for Paul Tsongas, ran to the left of Teddy Kennedy and passed Romney care, which included state-funded abortions."


"The fact is, three out of four Republicans rejected (Romney)," Gingrich said. "Gov. Romney is a moderate Massachusetts Republican to the left of the vast majority of Republicans. I find it amazing that the media continue to say he's the most electable Republican when he can't even break out in his own party."

"I suspect it's going to be a very lively campaign," Gingrich said.

Gingrich warmly praised Santorum for running a positive campaign in Iowa. "If you looked at the dollars spent by Romney and the dollars spent by Santorum, you'd praise Santorum too,'' he said.  Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, and Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator, each had a quarter of the votes cast in Iowa and traded leads during a long night of counting.  The race's razor-close finish at the top reflected what has been a jumbled and volatile race thus far for the chance to face Obama, a Democrat, in the general election.

For Santorum, who lost a 2006 Senate re-election race in his home state by an 18-percentage-point margin and who was an also-ran in GOP polls for most of last year, the outcome was the stuff of political dreams, even finishing barely behind Romney.
"Game on," Santorum said.  "We are off to New Hampshire," next stop on the primary calendar, Santorum declared. "We will win this election."  Santorum's New Hampshire political director, Nick Pappas, says 600 volunteers are working the phones. "We've easily doubled our volunteer totals since mid last week" when Santorum started rising in polls of Iowa voters.

Throughout the year, he has trailed his GOP rivals in fundraising — collecting just shy of $1.3 million through Sept. 30, federal records show. His supporters say campaign contributions surged with his sudden rise in Iowa, but Santorum is likely to be significantly outspent by Romney who amassed more than $32 million during the first nine months of 2011.

Romney is pumping $264,000 into television ads in New Hampshire, while Santorum is spending just $16,000 in the Granite State this week, according to the Associated Press Vince Galko, a Pennsylvania political consultant who ran Santorum's unsuccessful 2006 Senate campaign, said Santorum overcame a "shoestring" budget in Iowa with relentless campaigning.  "Whether they like him or not, people will tell you there are few people on the stump that can outperform him," said Galko, who also worked as a Senate aide to Santorum. "He comes across as this very sincere guy who says what he believes."

In the Senate, Santorum routinely logged 18-hour days, Galko said. "You can't out work him."  Santorum's task now is to build a campaign infrastructure in New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida and elsewhere to go along with the personal attention he has paid to those states. Some Republican political veterans don't think it's possible.  "The first six months of this year, he did more campaigning here than any other candidate, including Mitt Romney," says Fergus Cullen, former chairman of the New Hampshire Republican Party. "That being said, he's got almost nothing to show for that."

Cullen recalls Pat Buchanan's victory in the Granite State in 1996, when he lacked the organization and logistics to fight on effectively against the eventual nominee, Robert Dole. In 2000, he says, Arizona Sen. John McCain faced similar difficulties against George W. Bush.  "If I were advising him, I would recommend that he almost look past New Hampshire," Cullen says. "He's got more time to rally his forces for a push in South Carolina."
Romney flew to New Hampshire on Wednesday where he accepted an endorsement from John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee.  He shrugged off the prospect of even sharper criticism from rivals such as Gingrich as well as Obama's re-election team now that he has narrowly affirmed his front-runner status.  "I've got a big target on me now," he said Wednesday, adding it doesn't faze him.

Tuesday's vote was the closest outcome since Iowa became an important first stop in the presidential nominating process four decades ago. George H.W. Bush edged Ronald Reagan by 2 percentage points in the 1980 Iowa Republican caucuses.  Paul thanked supporters and declared himself one of "three winners" in Iowa.  "We have tremendous opportunity to continue this momentum," Paul said. "Tonight we have come out of an election where there were essentially three winners. … We will go on, we will raise the money. I have no doubt about the volunteers, they are going to be there."

An entrance survey of caucus voters showed about a third most wanted a candidate who could defeat Obama, while about a quarter said their top priority was the selection of a true conservative. The survey by Edison Media Research for the Associated Press and television networks was based on interviews with 1,737 people.  Romney led among Republicans most interested in defeating Obama in the November election, the survey found. It showed Santorum won strong backing from Tea Party conservatives and religious voters. Paul scored well with young voters and people concerned about the federal deficit.

The caucuses were a first step, and not a binding one, toward selecting Iowa's 25 delegates to the Republicans' nominating convention in Tampa. The state has only a small fraction of the more than 1,100 delegates needed to win the nomination. But the Iowa contest is far more important as the initial measure of voter support, providing a leader or leaders with momentum and media attention going into the next round of state events and, perhaps, force some to abandon their candidacies.  Iowa is hardly representative of the nation. It is 91% white, with a population of just over 3 million people, and is the nation's leading producer of hogs and corn. Although it has a Republican governor and often elects Republicans to Congress, it is a swing state in presidential elections. Obama carried the state in 2008 with 54% over McCain.

One candidate, Jon Huntsman, the former governor of Utah and Obama's first ambassador to China, bypassed Iowa to focus his long-shot hopes on New Hampshire.
New Hampshire holds its primary

Contributing: Susan Page and Catalina Camia in Des Moines; The Des Moines Register; Fredreka Schouten and Richard Wolf in Washington, D.C.; the Associated Press