Iowa Caucus 2012 The Closest Ever, Voter Turnout Breaks Record

The 2012 Iowa caucus will go down in history as the closest competition since the state claimed its first-in-the-nation status in 1972. GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney beat Rick Santorum by a just 8 votes, 24.6 percent to 24.5 percent, in a race that extended into the early hours of Wednesday morning. Romney won a total of 30,015 votes to Santorum's 30,007 votes.

Before Romney's close victory, the record was held by the 1980 Iowa caucus, in which George H.W. Bush beat Ronald Reagan by just two points, 31.6 percent to 29.5 percent.

Bush ended up losing the GOP nomination to Reagan, who went on to win the presidency against incumbent Jimmy Carter.

This year's caucus also set a record for turnout, with 122,255 total votes cast. The previous record for the GOP caucus was 119,000 votes, set in 2008.

So what does it mean? Though a crucial indicator of a candidate's momentum, the Iowa caucus doesn't have the best track record for accurately predicting the eventual general election winner.

Click through the slideshow to check out the winners and losers of past Iowa caucuses:

Comments

[wardropper]

09:18 AM on 01/08/2012

They get closer every election - exactly the sort of media manipulation of the truth which Murdoch is supposed to be taking a hammering on right now - but isn't really.

The purpose is to facilitate the "surprise" last-minute announcement that two planks of wood have just been elected president.

[juliebird]

04:01 PM on 01/04/2012

Fropm Bloomsberg Businessweek:
"There were about 614,000 active registered Republicans in Iowa as of Dec. 1, according to the Iowa Secretary of State’s office."
So, even though it's a record turnout, it's still less than 1 in 4 active registered Republicans.
And the 122,225 caucus-goers doesn't look impressive next to the 2008 Democratic caucus turnout:
"About 240,000 Democrats wound up attending the 2008 caucuses, according to a Democratic National Committee memo."

Given that Iowa is fairly evenly split between registered Democrats (710,000 in June 2010,according to the Desmoines Register, but the GOP says 10% of them have turned Republican) and registered Republicans (614,000 as stated above) (and there are more registered Independents: 773,000 in June 2010, according to the DesMoines Register), and given the talk of "We *MUST* defeat Obama or face The End of the World as We Know It!" from the Republican party and all its various candidates, I don't think a 122,225 turnout is all that impressive.