Republican presidential candidate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum is joined by his wife Karen as he waves to supporters at his Iowa caucus victory party Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2012, in Johnston, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

UPDATE: Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum will be listed in Republican Party of Iowa records as the winner of the party’s 2012 precinct caucuses, but his 34-vote victory over GOP presidential rival Mitt Romney will be accompanied by an asterisk.

That’s because party officials said Thursday that results from eight of the 1,774 precincts were missing when they conducted the vote certification process, meaning they likely will never know what the final tallies were for the candidates who competed in the Jan. 3 balloting.

The certified results of 1,766 precincts made public Thursday showed Santorum with 29,839 votes, followed by Romney – a former Massachusetts governor – with 29,805, Texas Rep. Ron Paul in third with 26,036, former House speaker Newt Gingrich with 16,163, Texas Gov. Rick Perry with 12,557, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann – who quit the race one day after Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses – with 6,046 and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman with 739. Party officials said 121,503 votes were certified.

While still incomplete, the party’s certified results flip the top two finishers compared to the order announced in the early-morning hours of Jan. 4 when Iowa GOP Chairman Matt Strawn said the unofficial count showed Romney with an 8-vote lead over Santorum.

“Just as I did in the early morning hours on January 4, I congratulate Sen. Santorum and Gov. Romney on a hard-fought effort during the closest contest in caucus history,” Strawn said in a statement. “Our goal throughout the certification process was to most accurately reflect and report how Iowans voted the evening of Jan. 3. We understand the importance to the candidates involved, but as Iowans, we understand the responsibility we have as temporary caretakers of the Iowa caucuses.”

The dead-heat finish essentially became a battle for bragging rights because Santorum’s unexpected surge in the closing days made him the candidate who carried the most momentum out of Iowa in a hotly contested nomination process that will see the next test for delegate support come on Saturday in South Carolina.

Romney, who left Iowa two weeks ago thinking he had outpolled Santorum with a tally of 30,015 votes to the ex-senator’s 30,007 among Iowa Republicans, issued a statement Thursday calling the party’s canvass results “a virtual tie.”

“I would like to thank the Iowa Republican Party for their careful attention to the caucus process, and we once again recognize Rick Santorum for his strong performance in the state,” Romney said in his statement. “The Iowa caucuses, with record turnout, were a great start to defeating President Obama in Iowa and elsewhere in the general election.”

While still a record, the certified turnout of 121,503 with eight precincts unrecovered was down from the 122,255 unofficial total announced on Jan. 4. The previous high turnout in a GOP presidential caucus was 118,253 votes cast in 2008.

Thursday’s release of certified precinct-by-precinct results came after a two-week period in which party officials in each of Iowa’s 99 counties were required to submit a form documenting the count from all of their precincts by 5 p.m. Wednesday.

State Republican party officials announced the certified results of the Jan. 3 caucuses showed former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum with a 34-vote edge over former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. Original results showed Romney as the winner by eight votes.

State party officials said they did not have totals from eight precincts, including Ward 2, precinct 3 in northwest Mason City and Geneva/Reeve in Franklin County.

John Rowe, Cerro Gordo County Republican chairman, said he did not know how the Mason City precinct totals were missing and didn’t want to point any fingers.

“What is missing is Form E which is a signed copy of the vote totals that were phoned in on caucus night,” he said.

“I sent in a foot-tall box full of forms from Cerro Gordo County for certification. There were two Form A’s, Form B, Form C, Form D and Form E from each precinct and there was other required paperwork as well.

“Out of all the forms we were required to send in, Form E is the only one that wasn’t in triplicate,” said Rowe.

“It’s unfortunate. It was probably a human error on one end or the other. I don’t like it being described as a `missing precinct.’ This was a very transparent process.”

Rowe said there are more than 1,700 precincts in the state and only eight were unaccounted for in the final tabulation.

“If my son took a physics test and got 99 percent, we’d be slapping him on the back,” he said.

Karen Zander, Republican chairwoman in Franklin County, said she doesn’t know how one of her precincts was unaccounted for. She said there were 19 voters in the precinct.

Bill Schickel of Mason City, vice chairman of the state Republican party, agreed.

“The precinct totals would not have changed the outcome of the election,” he said.

“This is a volunteer, grassroots-driven process. I feel badly that some precinct results were not certified.

“There is no perfect election. But having eight precincts uncertified out of more than 1,700 is a better certification rate than ever before,” he said.

“We’re not perfect. But this wasn’t anything like other states have had, like the ‘dangling chads’ in Florida.”

– John Skipper, Mason City Globe-Gazette

Caucus goers wait for the event to begin during the 2012 Iowa Caucus Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2012 at the Iowa Memorial Union on the University of Iowa Campus in Iowa City. (Brian Ray/ SourceMedia Group News)

DES MOINES – Gov. Terry Branstad on Friday gave his vote of confidence to the Republican Party of Iowa’s caucus process, saying party officials did “all they could do” to insure balloting was fair and secure and he believes any potential discrepancies in Tuesday’s results will be clarified when the 1,774 precinct tallies are certified later this month.

“We’ll probably never have a race that’s this close. This was phenomenal,” said Branstad, pointing to unofficial results announced early Wednesday that placed former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney at the top of the 2012 GOP field with the support of 30,015 caucus voters – just eight ballots more than former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum in a race that drew a record 122,255 participants.

“I think the party did a great job and I’m sure that they’re going to review and verify all the results,” the governor said in an interview Friday. “I know there have been some questions asked in some counties and I’m sure the party will do what they can to make sure that the results are certified.”

Branstad was responding to concerns raised by a Moulton man, Edward L. True, a supporter of third-place finishing Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who has filed a notarized statement claiming Santorum is the real winner and that there was an error in the caucus results from Appanoose County. According to True, the number of votes Romney received from Washington Wells Precinct was inflated by 20 when recorded by the state GOP.

GOP Chairman Matt Strawn said party officials have not finished certifying Tuesday’s vote totals as provided by party rules, but they have been in contact with Appanoose County Republicans and “we do not have any reason to believe that the final certified result” will change the outcome of this week’s vote. He said party rules provide for a two-week certification process and GOP officials will announce the final, official results when process has been completed.

Branstad said Iowa Republicans worked with Google to insure a secure reporting system and he noted that representatives for each competing presidential campaign were briefed on the party’s procedures and monitored the tallying process at precinct locations. He said that was true at his home precinct in Boone County on Tuesday night.

“This was the best it’s ever been done,” the governor said.

“It’s not easy when you have volunteers at all these sites around the state. But I think they did a phenomenal job,” he added. “I think they did all they could to try to make sure it was very fair and secure.”

Branstad said Iowa’s role as the lead-off state in the presidential nominating process is to winnow the field of candidates – oftentimes to the top three finishers, although this year five GOP contenders who actively competed in the statewide caucuses are still in the race. “We’ve always said about Iowa it’s not necessarily about who wins, it’s about winnowing the field and the top three were clearly ahead of the others.”

Cpl. Jesse Thorsen speaks at a rally for Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul. (image taken from KCRG-TV9 video)

An Army reservist who took the stage at a political event for Ron Paul and expressed his support for the Republican presidential candidate could face legal troubles, the military said Thursday.

Cpl. Jesse Thorsen, 28, stood at a podium at the Paul rally in Iowa on Tuesday night wearing his military fatigues and said meeting the Texas congressman was like “meeting a rock star.”

“His foreign policy is by far, hands down better than any other candidate’s out there,” Thorsen told the cheering crowd.

Army Reserve spokeswoman Maj. Angel Wallace said participating in a partisan political event in uniform is a violation of Defense Department rules, and the military is reviewing whether Thorsen could face legal ramifications. Soldiers are permitted to vote, participate in some political activities and express opinions about candidates as long as they are not in uniform and speaking in an official capacity, she said.

She said Thorsen was not on active duty at the time of Tuesday’s rally, but it was not immediately clear if that would have any bearing on the case.

Thorsen “stands alone in his opinions regarding his political affiliation and beliefs, and his statements and beliefs in no way reflect that of the Army Reserve,” Wallace said in a statement.

A telephone number for Thorsen could not immediately be found.

At Tuesday’s rally at Paul’s headquarters Ankeny, Iowa, Paul called Thorsen to join him on stage. Thorsen then shook his hand before he stepped to the podium.

Drew Ivers, a spokesman for Paul’s Iowa campaign, said the Thorsen’s appearance at the rally was spontaneous and not planned by the campaign.

In a separate interview with CNN on Tuesday, Thorsen said he had served in the military for the past decade.

“I’m really excited about a lot of his ideas, especially when it comes to bringing the soldiers home,” he told CNN. “I’ve been serving for 10 years now and all 10 years of those have been during wartime. I would like to see a little peace time Army.”

Paul, who finished third in Tuesday’s Iowa caucuses, has said if he is elected, he would bring all or nearly all troops home from Afghanistan and other foreign posts.

While he billed himself as serving for 10 years, it was unclear if that service was continuous, and it appears to be punctuated by at least one criminal case.

According to the military, Thorsen had deployed once to Afghanistan in 2009 after first joining the Florida National Guard in July 2001 and the Army Reserve in 2009. The military said he is with an engineer company out of Des Moines, and his unit falls under the 416th Theater Engineer Command out of Darien, Ill.

Court records show that Thorsen was arrested in Lee County, Fla., in December 2004 for three felonies: burglary, theft of a firearm and possession of burglary tools. Details were not available late Thursday.

He pleaded guilty to all three charges the following July but adjudication was withheld, meaning he would have no record. He was sentenced to probation and ordered to pay $660.50 He made regular payments through April 2006 totaling $630.50 but then stopped, the records show. In May 2006, he was ruled in violation of his probation and was arrested three weeks later in Tampa, spending three days in jail. In August 2006, he appeared before a judge in Lee County, who reinstated his probation. His probation ended in March 2007.

Wallace said the military was looking into the arrests. They were first reported by www.militarycorruption.com.

University of Iowa sophomore Sean Ryan with the college republicans (left) and UI senior Dustin German with the youth for Ron Paul (right) count ballots during the 2012 Iowa Caucus Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2012 at the Iowa Memorial Union on the University of Iowa Campus in Iowa City. (Brian Ray/ SourceMedia Group News)

The Republican Party of Iowa says it has no reason to doubt the accuracy of results it reported from the state’s first-in-the-nation precinct caucuses despite a claim of an error that would change the outcome.

The final vote count reported Tuesday gave former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney an eight vote victory over former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. The Iowa GOP reported Romney edged Santorum in a see-saw battle by 30,015 to 30,007.

Since then, however, a Moulton man has called those results into dispute.

Edward L. True has filed a notarized statement claiming Santorum is the real winner and that there was an error in the caucus results from Appanoose County.

According to True, the number of votes Romney received from Washington Wells Precinct were inflated by 20 when recorded by the state GOP.

True, who said he hopes the discrepancy is a simple mistake, reportedly helped count the votes and kept a record of the outcome to post to Ron Paul Facebook pages. He said he noticed the error when he looked at the state GOP website.

If his claim is accurate, then Santorum was the winner with 30,007 votes to Romney’s 29,995 rather than 30,015.

Late last night, The Gazette received a report of a discrepancy in the vote totals that were reported in the Illyria and Westfield townships in Fayette County. The report could not immediately be verified.

The results of voting at the Iowa GOP’s 1,774 precinct caucuses are being certified, according to Republican Party of Iowa Chairman Matt Strawn. That process could take two weeks.

“Out of respect to the candidates involved, party officials will not respond to every rumor, innuendo or allegation during the two-week process,” Strawn said in a statement issued Thursday. “That said, Iowa GOP officials have been in contact with Appanoose County Republican officials tonight and do not have any reason to believe the final, certified results of Appanoose County will change the outcome of Tuesday’s vote.”

If True’s claim is accurate and upheld by the certification process, the error changes very little in terms of the race for the Republican presidential nomination beyond bragging rights.

In a statement to Fox News, Santorum downplayed the impact of any error and suggested it’s the results of the next contest that will matter.

“It doesn’t really matter to me. It was a tie,” Santorum said. “We came from, you know, four or five points two weeks before the election. And ended up with 25 points … So I look at it this way — let’s see what the polls look like in New Hampshire here.”

Drake University political science professor Dennis Goldford told Des  Moines television station KCCI that any discrepancy in the votes “will make Iowa look a little foolish in the eyes of the rest of the country which already questions the seriousness of the caucuses.”

“But in terms of Santorum’s results here, the caucuses have made him a player in presidential politics and if he should nudge ahead of Gov. Romney for the final certified result that’s really not going to make any significant difference at this point,” Goldford said.

The Iowa Republican Party concedes precinct leaders have wide latitude in how votes are cast and counted. Almost as soon as caucuses were adjourned Tuesday, there was discussion about the various methods used to cast and
count ballots in the non-binding straw poll of caucusgoers’ preference for a nominee.

Republican presidential candidate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum is joined by his wife Karen as he waves to supporters at his Iowa caucus victory party Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2012, in Johnston, Iowa. (Charlie Riedel/AP)

“It shatters that one,” Chuck Laudner, a former Iowa GOP leader who backed Santorum, said of the senator’s meteoric rise from single-digit polling in December to a photo finish that saw Romney win by a scant eight-vote margin.

“The Huckabee thing will be quickly forgotten. Years and years from now they’ll be talking about the Santorum surge rather than the Huckaboom,” Laudner noted. “It eclipses that. Huckabee was growing for more than a month and that became a two-way race. Huckabee came back from second place to beat Mitt Romney. Santorum came from dead last. It’s an incredible feat.”

Observers said Santorum’s unexpected vault to the top of the 2012 GOP presidential field was a testament to the power of grit, determination and retail politicking in a campaign season already marred by negative attacks that promises to get even nastier as the focus moves out of Iowa.

“Every vote counts,” Gov. Terry Branstad said just hours after former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was officially declared the winner of Iowa’s 2012 precinct caucuses by eight votes over Santorum – who languished in single-digit poll numbers for most of the campaign. “Rick Santorum deserves a tremendous amount of credit. He did it the old fashioned way.”

Even though Romney was the winner, Santorum emerged as the candidate with momentum after a come-from-nowhere that Bob Vander Plaats of the Family Leader attributed to a “perfect storm” of issue positions, likeability and relentless campaigning through 381 events in all 99 Iowa counties that succeeded in coalescing support from key social and evangelical activists who swarmed precinct sites on Santorum’s behalf across a major portion of the state.

“Santorum came out of Iowa with a ton of momentum and a huge surge going into New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida,” said Vander Plaats, who voted party “stalwarts” who have been sitting on the fence will step forward now to help focus the GOP presidential nominating process into a two-man race where a true full-spectrum conservative can counter Romney’s hope for keeping the field fragmented.

Chuck Laudner, a former Iowa GOP leader who backed Santorum, said the Pennsylvania senator stuck with his plan and did the retail politicking that builds the trust and respect that you need to sway undecided voters to join your cause.

“Trust is a very important word in a caucus,” said Laudner, who credited endorsements from Vander Plaats and others with helping Santorum clear the last hurdle of viability that succeeded in bringing the networks of conservative activists to many of the 1,774 precinct meetings.

“Once they saw the viability question erode, they were more than happy to jump on board,” Laudner said. “Something special was being built and they were more than happy to jump on board because they liked Rick Santorum all along.”
Vander Plaats said his endorsement gave Santorum the stamp of credibility and authenticity that people were looking for but it was the candidate’s team and army of volunteers that carried the day.

Cody Brown, Santorum’s Iowa campaign manager, said the campaign had amassed 1,400 to 1,500 caucus captains and the late-breaking momentum was driven in part by its organization.

“They had their packets and they were making their closing arguments,” said Brown, who noted the campaign felt the ground moving prior to the Christmas holiday season.

“We anticipated a move all along. It was a question of when and how much,” he said. It was the high number of undecided voters and the organization the campaign put in place that gave it confidence, he said.

Now that Santorum has momentum, Vander Platts said he should not sit back as he moves to New Hampshire because he expects Romney and the Super PACs working on his behalf will turn their guns on the Pennsylvania senator like they successfully did against former House Speaker Newt Gingrich in Iowa.

“He needs to be on permanent offense. He has to play this one to win. If he does, I think things will come out very, very well for him,” Vander Plaats said. “I’m sure the Super PACS, Mitt Romney — they’re going to come after Rick Santorum relentlessly. I just think he’s going to be able to withstand that kind of a vetting. He’s been pretty solid all the way through. He doesn’t have a lot of that baggage that they can go after.”

The prospects for an increasingly negative campaign were on a lot of people’s minds as the presidential race moved to New Hampshire, where Romney said he expects to be the target as that state’s current front-runner.

“I know there’s going to be a lot of attacks coming my way. I’ve got a pretty big target on myself, but I’ve got broad shoulders. I’m ready for it,” said Romney during televised interviews before he left Iowa.

“It’s a long road ahead. I’m hoping to do well but it felt very good last night when the final votes came in,” he added. “I’ve been building a national campaign and I’ve been building a national campaign that will help me down the road and also help me if I’m the nominee because I know we’re going to face an extraordinary onslaught from President Obama.”

David Axelrod, Obama for America senior strategist, said the Iowa results show that Romney is “still the 25 percent man” who leaves Iowa as a weak front-runner in a GOP nominating process that may last awhile.

“Gov. Romney won the Iowa caucuses by eight votes in part because he called in the air force in the form of his Super PAC to carpet bomb Newt Gingrich in what undoubtedly the most brutal and negative campaign that Iowa has seen in these presidential caucuses. It was very effective,” said Axelrod, who noted Romney left telling people he hadn’t focused on Santorum yet. “You can read that as a dog whistle to the folks back in the laboratory at the Super PAC and you can expect that they will be unleashing a torrent on Sen. Santorum.”

Branstad said he doesn’t like negative campaigning but it was effective against some candidates during the Iowa campaign. He said the best way to combat it is to make your case in face-to-face campaigning with voters so when they later hear the attacks, they won’t ring true. “If they don’t know you, they might be inclined to believe it,” he said.

“I thought, ‘Gosh, I sure wish they would get these results final,’” said Tallett, 70, who serves on the central committee for the Clinton County Republicans. “I was wondering what was holding it up.”

About that time, while changing into her pajamas and watching CNN, Tallett heard her cell phone in the kitchen.  It was a Republican Party representative trying to track down Clinton County’s Caucus results so the state could declare a winner.

Tallett threw her suit coat on over her pajamas and drove to the county chairwoman’s house.

“She’s a sound sleeper, and I was running through her yard banging on her doors and ringing her door bells,” Tallett said.

Edith Pfeffer, chairwoman of Clinton County’s Republican Central Committee, eventually came to the door a bit dazed and provided – she says for the second time – the numbers needed to declare Mitt Romney winner of the Iowa Caucus by a mere eight votes.

But the communication gaffe that sent a 70-year-old woman scampering through her neighbor’s yard around 1 a.m. while the nation awaited results in the highly-touted first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses exemplifies some of the concerns that linger the morning after.

Some Republicans have expressed concern about the accuracy of the counting process, and some voters blogged, Tweeted and posted Facebook updates about Democrats infiltrating their precinct.

Several caucus-goers said they didn’t get to participate as planned because they showed up shortly after 7 p.m. – some because they went to their voting location instead of their caucus site – only to find the doors locked.

Linn County Republican Party officials said they received quite a few calls from upset would-be caucus-goers who didn’t make it into their precinct under the 7 p.m. deadline and were kept out. But Linn County Caucus Chairman Eric Rosenthal stressed that it was up to individual precinct leaders to decide how strictly to follow the 7 p.m. start time.

“People were upset, and we got a lot of calls,” he said. “But when you’re late, you have to throw yourself on the mercy of the court, and this time the court was your neighbors.”

Most caucus sites did allow late-comers to enter after 7 p.m., and Rosenthal said some precincts even started a few minutes late because so many people wanted to register as Republicans at the door.

“I found myself in that final hour running here and there and photo copying registration forms and distributing them to larger precincts,” he said. “I went to at least four sites in the closing minutes before 7 p.m.”

Rosenthal said thousands of Linn County residents registered Republican Tuesday, and he assumes many of them were Democrats wanting to participate in this year’s hotly-contested Caucus.

“I think there is a lot of interest, and we adopted the notion that we are going to be very open about this,” he said. “I focus on it being a neighborhood decision.”

Although plenty of voters walked away from Tuesday’s caucus questioning the accuracy of the final tally that put Romney ahead by only eight votes, Rosenthal stressed that the caucus process, by its nature, is not an exact science.

“I don’t think it’s accurate to say that Romney won or Santorum lost because it’s a straw poll and it’s not precise,” he said. “It winnows the field.”

The Iowa Caucus is not meant to pick a winner as much as it identifies losers, according to Rosenthal. Although Tuesday’s race was so close that the miscommunication out of Clinton County delayed the declaration of a winner, Rosenthal said, any attempt to make the process more precise might destroy its unique flavor.

“We don’t primary people, we caucus,” he said. “We offer our opinion, and that’s what it is – our opinion.”

Adding oversight to the Caucus counting process and taking steps to verify the votes would require money and a significant change in the now grass-roots system.

“This is neighborhood democracy in action, and we lose that if we abandon the caucus process,” Rosenthal said.

State officials agreed but said they have taken some extra safeguards to make sure there are no obvious gaffes.

“Our reporting system has some redundancies built in so we could catch anything unusual,” said Nicole Sizemore, assistant communications director for the Iowa Republicans. “We called all the counties and precincts to make sure the numbers were accurate.”

Sizemore said she’s unclear where the communication breakdown occurred with Clinton County. But Tallett said Clinton County called in the results even though they were nowhere to be found when it counted.

“I don’t know if it was a computer glitch or what,” she said.

Regardless, Tallett said, the gaffe led to an interesting night – or morning – that had the women bantering with Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper on CNN and earning the label of giving the “best live phone interview ever.”

“They seemed to have a lot of fun with it,” Tallett said of the CNN personalities. “I think they were just wanting to visit and have some relief.”

Their story might have been more funny because they were so tired from all the night’s events, she said.

“Edith was dazed,” Tallett said. “At first she couldn’t understand why she saw me running through her yard in my red coat. She didn’t know what was happening.”

It took the women a minute to shuffle through papers and find the right numbers. But they did and promptly called them into the state.

“We all knew the importance of this vote,” Tallett said.

Listen to National Public Radio interview with Carolyn Tallet, president of the Clinton County Republican Women’s Club, and Edith Pfeffer, chairwoman of the Clinton County Republican Central Committee

Republican presidential candidate, Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., speaks to congregants during a campaign stop at Jubilee Family Church in Oskaloosa on Sunday, Jan. 1. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

UPDATE: The lady with the titanium spine bowed to reality Wednesday. It was Iowa that sent the message.

The day after Rep. Michele Bachmann finished last among the six candidates competing in the state’s first in the nation caucuses, the Minnesota Republican and Waterloo native, called it quits, cancelling events in South Carolina and instead delivering the sobering news at a hotel conference room here.

“Last night, the people of Iowa spoke with a very clear voice and so I have decided to stand aside,” Bachmann said this morning, accompanied by her husband, Marcus, and friends and family.

She said the party needed to unite behind the eventual GOP nominee, but she did not express a preference. And she took no questions from reporters, instead embracing supporters before leaving a conference room where she announced her withdrawal.

It was a stunning fall for the three-term congresswoman who tried to unite conservatives as a bulwark against Mitt Romney and got a supercharged boost out of the Ames Straw Poll just five months ago.

But in the end, it was Rick Santorum who emerged the alternative.

Newt Gingrich, who finished fourth, has vowed to continue and he took out a full page ad in a New Hampshire newspaper criticizing Mitt Romney, the winner of the caucuses.

Romney ended up with 30,015 votes, eight more than Santorum, winning by a tenth of a percentage point. Ron Paul, who was strong with new and younger voters, finished third with 26,219 votes.

All four were headed to New Hampshire on Wednesday — Santorum with a stiff Iowa wind at his back, Gingrich with doubts trailing him — to campaign before the state’s Jan. 10 primary.

The final results of the caucuses weren’t announced until about 1:30 a.m. by Iowa GOP chair Matt Strawn.

The finish was the closest in caucus history.

Santorum’s win, analysts said, was a vindication for the intense Iowa-centric campaign he ran, even as national analysts questioned how the former Pennsyvlania senator can compete in later states with little money and organization.

Bachmann became the story for how far she fell.

With an energetic campaign and a no-holds barred message, she won nearly 29 percent of the votes at the straw poll. But it was all a slide from there on out.

Bachmann won only 6,073 votes Tuesday night, barely 5 percent of the total. It was the biggest fall for an Ames Straw Poll winner since the fundraiser’s inception in 1979. The 24 drop since August is a record for straw poll winners.

Only Jon Huntsman, who didn’t compete in the state, finished lower in Iowa. Even Perry, with 12,604 votes, for fifth place, doubled Bachmann’s total.

Only the night before, Bachmann appeared as if she would keep fighting. She told supporters that she’d go onto South Carolina, and with debates in New Hampshire she appeared to have some platform.

However, it became apparent even in the wee hours those plans might be in doubt.

Bachmann invested a lot in Iowa, emphasizing her roots in Waterloo repeatedly, calling herself an Iowan and claiming common cause and values with with the state’s residents.

At her announcement today, she professed a love and trust of the state and said she’d entered the race with the aim of repealing the new health care law and regulations on the financial industry, and what she said were Democratic policies leading the country into socialism.

She said she would continue to fight those policies.

She was unsparing, too, in her criticism of President Barack Obama, though often it was at odds with the facts.

In the closing days, Bachmann tried to sell the idea that others didn’t bring the purity to the conservative cause — or her strength of purpose in carrying it out. More than once, she proclaimed her “titanium spine” and sought to capture the legacy of Ronald Reaga and Margaret Thatcher.

Her campaign was wounded as Santorum consolidated voters, and she appeared on the wane. And when a top supporter, state Sen. Kent Sorenson, defected to Paul’s campaign in the closing days, some voters saw it as a sign of a sinking candidacy.

Other coverage from the Tuesday Republican caucus:

Perry tweets: ‘Here we come South Carolina’

Todd Dorman commentary: 3 tickets out, but none in first class

Romney edges Santorum by 8 votes

Republican presidential candidate, Texas Gov. Rick Perry speaks during a campaign stop at the Stoney Creek Inn, Monday, Jan. 2, 2012, in Sioux City, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is staying in the presidential race despite a fifth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses.

He’s written on his official Twitter account that the “the next leg of the marathon is the Palmetto State. … Here we come South Carolina!!!”

He’s attached a photo of himself jogging near a lake, wearing a Texas A&M running shorts and showing a thumbs-up.

The South Carolina primary is Jan. 21. New Hampshire’s is next Tuesday.