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Mitt Romney made a "polite" phone call Thursday to rival Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum to "concede victory" in Iowa, according to Santorum's spokesman Hogan Gidley. But Romney's team objected, saying his campaign didn't concede. “He just called him. They talked, and he recognized his efforts," a top campaign aide told CNN. Santorum finished the Iowa Republican caucuses 34 votes ahead of Mitt Romney, but results from several precincts are missing and the full actual results may never be known, according to a final certified tally released Thursday by the Iowa GOP. The new numbers show 29,839 votes for Santorum...

Reacting to this morning’s news that not only has Rick Santorum won the Iowa Caucuses after all but that they’ve managed to lose more ballots than the margin of victory, the Telegraph’s Toby Harnden tweets, “What a debacle for Iowa. Hard to see why candidates should take Iowa caucuses seriously in future.” Indeed. This is truly a joke. In a contest with fewer total votes (121,503 counted; goodness knows how many lost) than your average election for a school board seat, the powers that be have managed to have wild shifts in the vote count in several districts and be...

The Iowa Republican Party will certify this month's presidential caucuses as a split decision between former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, citing missing data from eight precincts, the Des Moines Register reported on Thursday. The party had previously awarded the contest to Romney, with an eight vote margin. The official certified caucus results are due out Thursday at 8:15 a.m. local time (1415 GMT). The Register said the new count put Santorum ahead by 34 votes. However, results from any one of the eight precincts with "missing data" could hold an advantage for Romney, the...

GOP Presidential Primary: Total Numbers after Iowa and New Hamshire: Thought I would create a thread that shows the totals of the primaries thus far in terms of total votes, totals by candidate, percentages, and delegates thus far. So, here it is Total Votes Cast (with percent in parens): Iowa = 121,914 (33.57%) New Hampshire = 241,299 (66.43%) Total Votes = 363,213 Total Vote/Percent and Delegates by Canddiate : Romney = 126,185 (34.74%) (12 Delegates) Paul = 82,122 (22.61%) (10 Delegates) Santorum = 52,921 (14.57%) (7 Delegates) Huntsman = 41,650 (11.52%) (2 Delegates) Gingrich = 39,321 (10.83%) 2 Delegates Perry...

During his 2006 Senate re-election campaign (which he lost), Rick Santorum released this ad to demonstrate his ability to work across the aisle. He touts having partnered on legislation with Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer and then Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Just how unserious are Republicans about defeating Barack Obama in November? So unserious that, in Iowa, at least, they came painfully close on Tuesday night to making Rick Santorum their putative standard-bearer. Mr. Santorum, the former congressman and senator of Pennsylvania, came within eight votes of defeating former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. It was the closest finish in the history of the Hawkeye State caucuses. Santorum bills himself as the conservative alternative to Mr. Romney. But saying you're a conservative doesn't mean you are one. (Think John McCain.) Oh, indeed, the Virginian (ne Pennsylvanian) has the corner on the theological...

Game On! Rick Santorum Scores Big in the Iowa Caucus in a Stunning 8 Vote Spread By Keith A. Fournier In one of the closest and most dramatic Caucus votes in US history, Senator Rick Santorum shocked the political establishment - and captured the Nations attention - in a stunning come from behind near victory in the Iowa Caucus of 2012...Rick Santorum's speech after the Iowa victory AMES,IA (Catholic Online) - In one of the closest and most dramatic Caucus votes in US history, Senator Rick Santorum shocked the political establishment - and captured the Nations attention - in a...

Mitt Romney won 25.19 percent of the vote in Iowa in 2008 - and lost that contest by 9 points. Since then, Mitt Romney spent millions of dollars. He got better at debating. He annihilated Rick Perry. The SuperPAC aligned to Romney took out a surging Newt Gingrich with negative ads. And Romney focused his energy on attacking Barack Obama. All that got him was 25 percent of the vote again last night. Almost exactly the 2008 result he had in Iowa. He lost the nomination then. This isn't exactly the start to 2012 Team Romney was expecting. 75 percent...

Debbie Wasserman Schultz on Fox and Friends

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney beat former Sen. Rick Santorum by a margin of just 8 votes in the Iowa GOP caucuses, the chairman of the Iowa Republican Party announced early Wednesday.

Mitt Romney edged Rick Santorum by a mere 8 votes in Tuesday's caucuses - a margin that amounted to a tie in the crucial opening act in the 2012 presidential race and propelled the newly reshaped contest to New Hampshire and beyond... The final count, as reported by Iowa GOP chairman Matt Strawn showed Romney winning 30,015 votes to Santorum's 30,007 votes, or 24.6 percent to 24.5 percent. Paul finished with 21.4 percent.

GOP political consultant Steve Schmidt, one of the toughest guys in the business and the guru behind the 2008 John McCain presidential campaign, said that early polls suggest Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann are likely no longer “plausible” candidates after tonight. And he told MSNBC it increasingly looks like former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum “may well emerge as the chief alternative to Mitt Romney.” With Santorum showing strong in early exit polls, Schmidt — an MSNBC analyst — told the network moments ago that Santorum is “going to have to make a lot of decisions very quickly if he comes...

"..........And this, as much as anything else, is why Rick Santorum—a man who was stuck at 4 percent in the local polls as recently as one month ago, and is still stuck at 4 percent nationally—is going to win the Iowa caucuses on Tuesday........

President Obama will hold a televideo conference with Iowa caucus voters on Tuesday evening. He will hold the event at 8:15 p.m., the White House announced Monday. Obama hasn't campaigned in the early caucus state during the primary process, given he doesn't have any competition, but the state gave his 2008 campaign its start when he won the caucuses that year. Plus, Iowa will be a swing state in the 2012 general election. Obama won the state in the 2008 general election but it went Republican in 2004, voting for then-President George W. Bush. The president and his family arrive...

Des Moines, Iowa (CNN) - Rick Santorum's poll numbers aren't the only thing on the rise. The former senator from Pennsylvania's fundraising figures are also skyrocketing. A senior Santorum adviser tells CNN the campaign raised more money in the last week than they raised on-line the past six months, adding that fundraising is between 300% and 400% higher on a daily basis than it was just ten days ago.

Live thread to cover today's GOP caucus. News, predictions, opinions, totals, and the like. Will be heading out about 4 pm or so to get our site ready and do a final review with the precinct chairs. I expect it to be bigger than 2008 with very heavy turnout and we are preparing for that. We are also ready for disruptions. They simply won't be tolerated. The state party sent us a memo saying if there's any trouble call the cops immediately. Anyone trying to cause problems is going to get a rude awakening. My predictions of the outcome are...

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NBC's Andrea Mitchell on New Year's Day made it clear to Nightly News viewers that her Obama-loving network will continue using the race card to assist the current White House resident's reelection. In a brief segment about the upcoming Iowa caucuses, Mitchell said "the rap" on the Hawkeye state is that "it doesn't represent the rest of the country - too white, too evangelical, too rural" Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2012/01/02/andrea-mitchell-iowa-too-white-too-evangelical-too-rural#ixzz1iMDxZzyc

I will be a "Temp" Iowa Caucus Chairman tomorrow night, so...

The latest polls out of Iowa confirm two things as we head into the caucuses: Ron Paul has peaked, and his support is now on the downswing. And Rick Santorum is surging, going from single-digits to third place in a matter of days.If the Des Moines Register survey holds true, Santorum may just be getting started: The poll, conducted Tuesday through Friday, shows support at 24 percent for Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts; 22 percent for Paul, a Texas congressman; and 15 percent for the surging Rick Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania.But the four-day results don’t reflect...

They start @ 1800 Central Time.

It's about time one of the candidates come right out and call the media's bluff. One thing you learn in the real world is that when someone quotes an anonymous source often it is because they don't have the balls to state that it is their own opinion. Not a big Perry fan but he gets my Kudos today. Now if more people in the GOP field in particular would just refuse to answer questions without credible sources I think we would be getting somewhere.

During the January 1, 2012 NBC Nightly News, Andrea Mitchell may have given away the media's presidential election coverage playbook for this fall: racism may cost Barack Obama as white, religious, non-urban voters may be leaning towards the Republican.

Mitt Romney leads the Iowa Republican Presidential Caucus with 22%. Following closely, Ron Paul is in second place at 17%, Rick Santorum is in third place at 16%, and Newt Gingrich is in fourth place at 15%. In a December 19-22, 2011 survey, support for Santorum was at 4%. In a December 26-28 survey, support for Santorum was at 11%. Among registered Republicans, Romney leads with 24%, followed by Santorum at 17%, Gingrich at 16%, and Paul at 14%. In a similar poll conducted December 26-28, Romney was at 23% among Republicans, Gingrich was at 19%, Paul was at 12%,...

Raleigh, N.C. – The Republican caucus in Iowa is headed for a photo finish, with the three leading contenders all within two points of each other. Ron Paul is at 20%, Mitt Romney at 19%, and Rick Santorum at 18%. Rounding out the field are Newt Gingrich at 14%, Rick Perry at 10%, Michele Bachmann at 8%, Jon Huntsman at 4%, and Buddy Roemer at 2%.

One poll is getting the big headlines this morning: NBC poll: Mitt Romney, Ron Paul neck-and-neck in Iowa; Newt Gingrich in 5th The numbers from that poll, conducted Tuesday and Wednesday: Romney 23% Paul 21% Santorum 15% Perry 14% Gingrich 13% Bachmann 6% Similar numbers from a Rasmussen poll conducted Wednesday: Romney 23% Paul 22% Santorum 16% Gingrich 13% Perry 13% Bachmann 5% Thesed results have been enough to move Santorum to third place in the Real Clear Politics average of Iowa polls, but there’s yet another poll — conducted Thursday by We Are America — which shows Santorum now...

HONOLULU (AP) -- President Barack Obama will travel to Cleveland the day after the Iowa caucuses as he seeks to draw a contrast with Republicans running for president. The White House says the president's Jan. 4 trip to Ohio will focus largely on the economy.

With 45 percent of Iowa Republican voters undecided and a roller-coaster ride about to come to a screeching stop next Tuesday with the GOP caucuses, it may be Rick Santorum's turn to take the final ascent and surprise the political class by ... doing better than expected? Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator, has been touted as the sleeper candidate by none other than 2008 Iowa caucuses winner Mike Huckabee. He has relentlessly campaigned in the state, hitting all 99 counties and moving his family out there. He has held 350 campaign events in the past year. Read more:

With less than a week to go until Republicans cast the first votes of the 2012 presidential race in Iowa, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and Texas congressman Ron Paul remain atop the field there, even as the fortunes of their closest competitors are quickly changing, according to a new CNN/TIME/ORC poll released Wednesday. Romney now leads the pack with support from 25% of likely Iowa caucus-goers, while Paul boasts 22%, both posting a five-point gain since early December. While Romney’s lead in Iowa is tenuous, his continued strength across the board raises the possibility that the establishment front-runner could...

AMES, Iowa -- A new Iowa State University/Gazette/KCRG poll of 333 likely Iowa Republican caucus goers finds Ron Paul in the top spot among GOP presidential candidates with 27.5 percent, followed closely by Newt Gingrich with 25.3 percent. Paul's lead over Gingrich is within the poll's margin of error at plus or minus 5 percentage points. Mitt Romney is in third place at 17.5 percent, while Rick Perry is the only other candidate to poll in double digits at 11.2. While Paul's lead is just over 2 percentage points and easily within the poll's margin of error, it may actually...

Could the race in Iowa really go to a man who has spent the least amount of time in the state among all of the candidates vying for caucus-goers? Rasmussen’s latest poll of 750 likely caucus-goers show Romney with a small but statistically significant lead, 25% to 20% for new second-place candidate Ron Paul. But the big move may be from the second tier:

Newt Gingrich isn't exactly chasing the gay vote. The Republican presidential candidate told a homosexual Iowa man at a campaign event on Tuesday to vote for President Obama. Scott Arnold, a Democrat and associate professor of writing at William Penn University, approached the ex-House speaker in Oskaloosa wanting to know how Gingrich would represent him as President, according to the Des Moines Register.

The Republican presidential primary has become a bit feisty, but it will get downright ugly if Ron Paul wins the Iowa caucuses. The principled, antiwar, Constitution-obeying, Fed-hating, libertarian Republican congressman from Texas stands firmly outside the bounds of permissible dissent as drawn by either the Republican establishment or the mainstream media. (Disclosure: Paul wrote the foreword to my 2009 book.) But in a crowded GOP field currently led by a collapsing Newt Gingrich and an uninspiring Mitt Romney, Paul could carry the Iowa caucuses, where supporter enthusiasm has so much value. If Paul wins, how will the media and the...

..Fueled by a bigger pile of campaign donations than most of his rivals, Perry is blitzing Iowa in a 42-town bus tour that enables him to personally deliver his campaign message and capitalize on his skills at retail politics. Team Perry is also saturating the state with radio and TV ads and plans to import hundreds of Texans, including Republican state officials and pro-Perry lawmakers, to woo caucus-goers. "We’re certainly hearing his name a lot with radio and TV commercials, probably a lot more than the other candidates," said Dr. Bill Davidson of Bettendorf in eastern Iowa. "I like the...

Results from Democratic firm Public Policy Polling poll of likely Iowa caucusgoers released this morning: Ron Paul (23 percent), Mitt Romney (20 percent), Newt Gingrich (14 percent), Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Perry (all at 10 percent), Jon Huntsman (4 percent), and Gary Johnson (2 percent).

WINNERSMichele Bachmann: Bachmann is an underrated — or maybe just overlooked — debater. Since a lull in the early fall, she’s been very solid in these forums, and put together a strong performance tonight. For second tier candidates — like Bachmann — debates are about fighting for air time and drawing contrasts with the frontrunners. She did both. Bachmann slammed Texas Rep. Ron Paul for his position on Iran and hammered Gingrich for taking money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. She also was forceful — and effective — when she lashed out at Gingrich for repeatedly acting dismissively toward...

Newt Gingrich did not walk on stage at Tuesday's Republican presidential debate planning to make a bold new statement on immigration. In debate prep, the former House speaker spent a lot of time with national security advisers discussing the issue of religious freedom abroad -- a topic he has tried to showcase recently -- but didn't discuss immigration at all. Besides, when Gingrich made his now-controversial remarks -- that he would permit some long-time illegal immigrants to stay in the United States permanently -- he wasn't saying anything he hadn't said earlier in the campaign. It's just that back then...

DES MOINES — Having just taken his place at the front of the Republican presidential pack, Newt Gingrich now faces a potential backlash from conservative activists here in Iowa over an immigration proposal that he called “humane” but that his opponents quickly decried as providing “amnesty.” The former House speaker appears to have alienated some of the conservatives who had warmed to his candidacy by saying Tuesday in a candidates debate that he would allow millions of illegal immigrants who have settled in the United States to become legal residents.

Popular two-term Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) is set to endorse Mitt Romney Wednesday morning in Iowa, the second major endorsement from the Senate for the former Massachusetts governor this week. "Mitt Romney has shown throughout his life in the private sector, as leader of the Olympics, as governor and in this campaign that he will not back down from difficult challenges," Thune said in a statement. "Washington could use these common sense principles at such a critical time."

DES MOINES -- Sen. John Thune (S.D.), a conservative member of the Republican Senate leadership, will endorse presidential candidate Mitt Romney during a campaign stop here on Wednesday.

To most pollsters and pundits, any mention of Ron Paul typically comes with an implied asterisk. Whether they say it outright or not, they don’t think the Texas congressman has a chance of being the GOP presidential nominee. Too far outside mainstream, tea party, or born-again socially conservative Republicanism, they say. More libertarian than anything else. And yet Rep. Paul soldiers on, and you know what? As other candidates – Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain – dash forward hare-like only to stumble or be run over by the next new thing, Paul is the perpetual tortoise in the race,...

Ron Paul has effectively crowd sourced his campaign and his get out the vote in Iowa and New Hampshire may set a new standard for political volunteer efficiency. In the video the women make a valid but not often overlooked point in campaign politics, "volunteer smart."

A key Iowa social conservatives group announced Tuesday it will not endorse former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney or businessman Herman Cain, but is still evaluating if it would back one of the other candidates. The Family Leader, which hosted a forum that six Republican candidates attended last Saturday, said in a statement that its board had narrowed its choices of an endorsement to Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and ex-senator Rick Santorum (Penn). The statement said the group would not consider endorsing Romney, who the group criticized for skipping its event. The...

During the Thanksgiving Family Forum (TFF) this past Saturday, moderator Frank Luntz asked the Republican candidates a very interesting Tenth Amendment question: “Do states have a right to do wrong?” In case you missed it, the TFF was another unusual event in what is proving to be a very unusual campaign season. Held in a church in Des Moines, Iowa, and with all the GOP contenders in attendance except for Mitt Romney and John Huntsman, it was not a debate as much as a discussion – and a rather intellectual one. The candidates were asked about their faith, trials and...

DES MOINES, Iowa — A gathering of religious conservatives in Iowa tonight turned into one of the most emotional moments of the 2012 primary season when two presidential candidates — Herman Cain and Rick Santorum — both fought back tears while telling personal stories about the most challenging moments in their lives. Cain, whose wife, Gloria, was in the audience, spoke about being diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer in 2006, stopping several times during his re-telling of the story to compose himself. “I can do this,” Cain said he told his wife moments after getting the cancer diagnosis from...

Ron Paul says that Republicans will be punished if they do not hold the line against tax increases in the super-committee negotiations and argued that his campaign was well situated to challenge Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination in a radio interview with Sean Hannity Thursday. "If we capitulate, they will punish the Republican Party," Paul said in response to questions about proposed tax increases. He also said that Republicans needed to be thinking more dramatically about reducing the federal deficit. "Even if they cut a trillion dollars over the next couple of years from the baseline budget it doesn't...

He was a distant fourth in Rasmussen’s poll of likely voters this morning, but there’s no way the “Paul surge!� meme is going to die that easily. New fuel for the fire today from Iowa State: A poll of almost 1,000 Iowa registered Republicans has him just above 20 percent, four points better than Romney and just four points back of a guy whose own supporters have taken to dumping him as unelectable on national TV. As Cain fades a bit, Newt starts to come on strong, and Perry gets his second wind, there’s at least a chance here of...

Texas Rep. Ron Paul, long dismissed by the GOP establishment as a fringe candidate, has broadened his electoral appeal and emerged as a major player in the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, according to several recent polls and conversations with a handful of longtime Hawkeye political operatives... In a Bloomberg News survey — conducted by renowned Iowa-based pollster Ann Selzer — Paul was in a four-way statistical tie for first along with businessman Herman Cain, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich... And, in a new Iowa State/Gazette/KCRG survey, Paul took 20 percent — behind only Cain...

Rasmussen’s latest poll in Iowa gives Newt Gingrich a big claim to legitimacy in the Republican nomination fight, but it also is pretty good news for Mitt Romney as well. Among likely caucus-goers, Gingrich now leads Romney 32/19, with Herman Cain dropping more than half of his previous support: The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely Iowa Republican caucus-goers shows Gingrich with 32% followed by former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney at 19%. Georgia businessman Herman Cain, who led in Iowa last month, drops to third with 13% of the vote. Texas Congressman Ron Paul draws 10% of the...

DES MOINES -- While the political world obsesses over the problems of Herman Cain, social conservatives here in Iowa are making a quiet effort to unite behind a single candidate to defeat Mitt Romney in the January 3 Republican caucuses. Romney will benefit from a divided field, they believe, and the best way for social conservatives who oppose Romney to assert their influence would be to support a single candidate. In a move that could stun political observers around the country, those conservatives are increasingly focusing on Rick Santorum as that candidate. Nothing is a done deal -- many are...