Iowa Caucuses

Mitt Romney kicked off caucus day without the usual obligatory appeal urging Iowans to support him when Iowa holds the first presidential contest in the nation. Instead, he continued to act as the presumptive nominee and sharply criticized President Obama on Tuesday, saying he has failed to deliver much of what he campaigned on, from righting the nation's economy to dealing with Iran's efforts to acquire a nuclear weapon. “There's a huge gap between the promise and the delivery, the promise and the performance,” Romney said, speaking to a few dozen voters and a crush of media at the Temple of Performing Arts.

The 2012 Iowa caucuses may produce the narrowest margin of victory in history for the Republican contest there, with Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum vying for the top spot in the first nominating event of the presidential election. With 92% of precincts reporting as of 10:21 p.m. Central Time, Romney and Santorum were separated by just 13 votes, each just under 25% of the total vote. The closest GOP contest in the history of Iowa's leadoff contest was 1980, when George H. W. Bush edged Ronald Reagan 31.6%-29.5%.

After months of campaigning and a revolving cast of Republican front-runners, the Iowa caucuses on Tuesday night will provide the first voter verdict of the 2012 presidential contest. President Obama's victory on the Democratic side is a foregone conclusion. His campaign is already on the scene in Iowa, a battleground state in the fall. And without a challenger for the nomination, Obama has the luxury of focusing on what is shaping up as a tough general election. Not so for the seven candidates for the GOP nomination.

A pumped-up Rick Perry, launching a final Iowa campaign swing Monday in pep-rally style, is confronting what will almost certainly be the first electoral defeat of a long life in politics. The question is what happens next. The Texas governor, wearing a blue fleece "Perry/President" zip-up and an open-collar white shirt, was in full yell-leader mode, bouncing on his toes and punching the air as he began a three-stop bus tour with a rally at a Sioux City hotel. "Every day that goes by, we're going to get stronger," he told about 100 supporters in the faux-rustic lobby of the Stoney Creek Inn, a stuffed bull moose head above him and a gas flame in the stone fireplace warming his surgically repaired back.

The Iowa caucuses appear to be a three-man race, with entrance polls indicating that either Ron Paul, Mitt Romney or Rick Santorum is likeliest to win the first contest of the 2012 presidential race. Such a result would be in line with expectations before the gatherings of party activists Tuesday night around the Hawkeye State. As of 8:06 pm Central Time, Paul led with 24% of the vote, followed by Romney at 23.2% and Santorum at 23.0%. Just over 15% of the 1,774 precincts have reported results so far. LIVE COVERAGE: Iowa GOP caucuses Fox News, based on its entrance polling, projected that Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann would finish last of the six candidates most fiercely contesting the state.

Rick Santorum's supporters eyed the TV screen, watched the returns roll in - and they still couldn't quite believe it. “This is beyond my wildest dreams, “ exclaimed Matt Schultz, Iowa's secretary of state, who endorsed Santorum just a month ago. With about half of Iowa's precincts reporting, Santorum was in a dead heat with Mitt Romney, with Ron Paul slightly behind. A matter of weeks ago, the former Pennsylvania senator appeared dead in the water, on course to finish near the bottom of the field.

Only a fool would try to predict what will happen in tonight's caucuses, so here goes. The likeliest result is some combination of Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum finishing in the top three slots. We're not foolish enough to try to predict the order, but we can spin out a few scenarios, depending. A first-place Romney victory could all but end the Republican nominating fight as quickly as it starts. The combination of one-two victories in Iowa and New Hampshire, the two leadoff states, would make it exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, for any runner-ups to rise to challenge Romney.

In the closest finish in the history of the Iowa caucuses, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum were locked in a virtual dead heat in the first battle for the Republican presidential nomination. With all but 25 of the state's 1,774 precincts reporting, Santorum's lead over Romney was just five votes out of more than 120,000 cast. Santorum rode a late-breaking burst of support, after getting counted out by virtually everyone until the final days of a long campaign. His Iowa comeback represented a drastic reversal from his last election night, a 17-point reelection drubbing in 2006.

In the closest finish in the history of the Iowa caucuses, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum wound up in a virtual dead heat in the first battle for the Republican presidential nomination, with Romney emerging as the apparent winner by a margin of just eight votes. When results from the last of the state's 1,774 precincts were tallied Wednesday morning, Romney had 30,015 votes to Santorum's 30,007. Combined, the two accounted for half of the more than 120,000 votes cast at the statewide gatherings of party activists.

“Does anyone know the name Kelly Clarkson?” asked Ron Paul, the libertarian Texas congressman whose appeal will be tested Tuesday night as Iowans become the first to make their preferences known in the 2012 presidential contest. The gymnasium of Valley High School, filled with several hundred students just back from Christmas break, erupted in cheers. Paul didn't know who Clarkson was until she threw her support behind him recently. She was the first winner of “American Idol,” in 2002.