[1]The first Republican vote to pick Barack Obama's presidential challenger turned out to be a photo-finish, as front-runner Mitt Romney barely managed to sneak past conservative Rick Santorum, whose surprising late surge made the Iowa contest the closest ever in history.
Former Massachusetts governor Romney finally defeated Pennsylvania Senator Santorum by a wafer-thin margin of eight votes as official results came after hours of agonising wait in which both candidates kept leading and trailing each other.
In fact, moments before the final tally, Santorum was leading by four votes, and the extent of the nail-biter can be gauged from the fact that at one point Romney was leading by a single vote.
The Iowa caucus vote is a crucial first before the Republican battle for the White House challenge goes to New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida. From Iowa, candidates rush to New Hampshire for the next round of primaries.
Romney got 30,015 votes while Santorum received 30,007 votes at end of the tally in which 1,22,255 votes were cast. While the contest ended up being neck and neck between Romney and Santorum, Texas Congressman Ron Paul was a crucial third angle to the battle, coming a close third with 21 per cent of the caucus votes.
With a fractured result, the vote showed that the Republicans are divided over the choice and are yet to throw a clear answer as to what kind of candidate they would finally pick to mount a challenge to the incumbent Obama. The last time the Iowa caucuses produced such a close outcome was in 1980, when George Bush beat Ronald Reagan by two percentage points.
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