Iowa Caucus 2012 Winners And Losers (PHOTOS)

With the results of the Iowa caucuses now in, we can begin to assess whether the GOP candidates' strategies have paid off.

For some, it's been all about developing a framework in Iowa that could, at least, prolong their campaigns, and, at most, provide them with valuable momentum going into other, arguably more important, primary contests.

Republican candidates aren't the only ones who will feel the effects of the first event in a lengthy primary season. Candidates and outside groups broke new ground in Iowa, blanketing the airwaves in massive ad buys that often took direct aim at primary rivals. The power of attacks ads became more pronounced than ever, bolstered by millions of dollars in expenditures by outside groups.

The GOP hopefuls now turn toward New Hampshire, which will hold its primary on Tuesday, Jan. 10. With some contenders down, but not out, all candidates not named Romney must now work double time to remain relevant. And while they forge ahead, there is another candidate watching it all play out from the White House.

Scroll through the slideshow below for a list of the biggest winners and losers of the 2012 Iowa caucuses.

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Comments

[BGUMP]

01:41 PM on 01/04/2012

I wasn't aware of any winners in Iowa. To my knowledge, Barack Obama wasn't in Iowa?

[Ricardo01]

11:05 AM on 01/04/2012

Biggest winner of the beauty contest was Barack Obama.

[pipswebstuff]

09:59 AM on 01/04/2012

Im from the UK- You guys want to swap Ron Paul for David Cameron?

[NRMLUNIT]

09:08 AM on 01/04/2012

The economy of Iowa is the big winner here. Looks like over $11,000 spent per vote. STMULATING !

[navalvet]

08:53 AM on 01/04/2012

Should Perry still have a lot of campaign money, he could stay in for South Carolina and Florida because Newt is faltering, nationally. He stands a chance, depending on how the SC evangelicals view Santorum, of moving ahead of the former Pennsylvania senator, in the southern states like South Carolina, Florida and then Georgia.
I don't think that any candidate could regard the Iowa caucuses as defining Republican sentiment. I just do not want the show to end here, the longer it goes on, the happier Obama supporters will be.

[mrmyfld1]

08:51 AM on 01/04/2012

The losers......Americans.

The winners....extremists.

[Charlene Estes]

08:12 AM on 01/04/2012

Very interesting. My take after IA is the same as it was before. Romney is going to be the eventual winner, it is just how fast the fractured at best republican party coaleses around him. The established top would love for him to pull off a big win in NH and then go on to sweep the rest. That is their ideal outcome, but thanks to the TP, that may not happen and a long drawn
out ugly fight will do serious damage to them.

it is still wait and see time.

[profco]

07:33 AM on 01/04/2012

I guess it's back to the media ignoring Ron Paul (who did not place that far behind Romney and Santorum).

[hopeisalive]

08:20 AM on 01/04/2012

Did you hear Mr. Paul's comment yesterday about his feeling that he won't get the nomination and is afraid he might. For all your support of him, can you tell me any legislation that he has authored that passed Congress and was signed into law by any of the Presidents during his terms of office in the House? What committees has he been the chairman of? If ever there was a true member of the Part of No, Mr. Paul is the champion of saying "No", as that has been his vote most of the time.

[Photogwest]

08:52 AM on 01/04/2012

Isn't that what makes him popular, though? The fact that he has been saying 'No' to politicians for the last 25 years who have been steadily increasing the power and reach of the federal government makes him a good Republican candidate. People like the fact that although he has been "in" in the establishment (aka Congress) for years, he hasn't been "of" the establishment. It says a lot that Paul got an overwhelming majority of the young votes (17-35). At the same time, it's also disturbing that more mature voters, who have witnessed much more of the economic bubble bursts and fruitless warmongering, are voting for the status quo with candidates like Santorum and Romney.

[Just logic]

09:07 AM on 01/04/2012

First off getting things passed in Congress is not necessarily a good thing. How did we get into a 16trillion debt issue. And by the way he did pass to have the Fed audited. And they found 13 trillion of off the books loans. Paul also sat on and was chairman on the currency and trade commission for at least 5 years.
He has not gotten many things passed this is true but that is also because he doesn’t play the game the same way that Washington does. He got nicknamed Dr No. from the lobbyists and special interests groups.

[Retnan]

07:27 AM on 01/04/2012

Please, the GOP will be united in talking down Obama. He did not "win" yesterday.

Niether did Romney, more than 3/4 voted against him. Paul is irrelevant. It's Santorum V. Romney. Romney will win NH but I don't see how he beats Santorum, wtih Perry gone and Bachmann in the low single digits until she is gone. Newt eventually will be gone too. The Republican base does not like Mitt Romney as witnessed by his "win" with a quarter of the vote.

[MarkAntney]

01:37 PM on 01/04/2012

I agree with your assessment except I don't think Newt will drop out. He's taking this personally.

I don't see how Santorum beats either Romney or Newt.

I expect someone else to enter the race and/or Paul going Independent.

There's no candidate to "Fire Up" enough votes to beat Obama?

[RonP58]

06:49 AM on 01/04/2012

The big takeaway from Iowa:

The TeaPublican Party is more "fractured" and in more "disarray" than many thought....

The reality is, there is NO clear-cut ideology and unifying agenda in that Party....every candidate agrees on "small" points....BUT, in the end, they all are trying to paint themselves as unique and different in ways that make them sound and look "fringe".....

The TeaPublican Candidates will now "tear each other apart"....the jackals have descended and this is going to be a bloody, bloody, TeaPublican battle....THIS IS ARMAGEDDON......to quote Rick Sani-torium....."Let's ARM-A-GED-IT-ON.......

Those Christian values and morals have come out in spades haven't they?.....They take that Old Testament stuff seriously, don't they....?

[pinetar]

05:18 AM on 01/04/2012

Question...Why is it there is always a precinct that hasnt reported yet.

[tjamman]

06:08 AM on 01/04/2012

Same reason the stock market is so damn volatile.

In this day and age of INSTANT NEWS, and no media wanting to get 'scooped', news reports come in bit by bit.
Updating every miniscule bit of information by seconds!

OVERKILL!!

[fredpa]

05:07 AM on 01/04/2012

The story of this race is the very steady 25% supporting Romney, and the very volatile 75%. The latter is so desperate they'll rush in 15 and 20% blocks to a Cain, as Perry, a Gingrich, and lately a Santorum. None of those four has any business in a presidential race. Look out your window. The driver of that car going by could get support against Romney. The problem is money. For anybody to get a second run at Romney requires lots of it.

[ShaggyAtl]

03:23 AM on 01/04/2012

Part three: The candidate supported by progressiv­es - President Obama - Most of all, America’s National Security State, its Surveillance State, and its posture of endless war is more robust than ever before. The nation suffers from what National Journal‘s Michael Hirsh just christened “Obama’s Romance with the CIA.” He has created what The Washington Post just dubbed “a vast drone/killing operation,” all behind an impenetrable wall of secrecy and without a shred of oversight. Obama’s steadfast devotion to what Dana Priest and William Arkin called “Top Secret America” has severe domestic repercussions as well, building up vast debt and deficits in the name of militarism that create the pretext for the “austerity” measures which the Washington class (including Obama) is plotting to impose on America’s middle and lower classes.

[yweston]

04:03 AM on 01/04/2012

Baggers are "old news". Change your "avatar" AND maybe someone here will listen to you.

[JessWonderin]

07:01 AM on 01/04/2012

but, I doubt it . . . . .

[RonP58]

06:51 AM on 01/04/2012

You better be more concerned about what the TeaPublican Party's FASCIST Agenda would impose on America's Middle and Lower Classes.....

The Massive debt you speak of was engineered by the Republican Party over an 8 year period...Revisionist History is a "nice" thing....JUST NOT REALITY....

[ShaggyAtl]

03:23 AM on 01/04/2012

Part two: The candidate supported by progressives - President Obama - He has entrenched for a generation the once-reviled, once-radical Bush/Cheney Terrorism powers of indefinite detention, military commissions, and the state secret privilege as a weapon to immunize political leaders from the rule of law. He has shielded Bush era criminals from every last form of accountability. He has vigorously prosecuted the cruel and supremely racist War on Drugs, including those parts he vowed during the campaign to relinquish — a war which devastates minority communities and encages and converts into felons huge numbers of minority youth for no good reason. He has empowered thieving bankers through the Wall Street bailout, Fed secrecy, efforts to shield mortgage defrauders from prosecution, and the appointment of an endless roster of former Goldman, Sachs executives and lobbyists. He’s brought the nation to a full-on Cold War and a covert hot war with Iran, on the brink of far greater hostilities. He has made the U.S. as subservient as ever to the destructive agenda of the right-wing Israeli government. His support for some of the Arab world’s most repressive regimes is as strong as ever.

[WiltonDiary]

03:47 AM on 01/04/2012

Those that embrace the Gadsen Flag forget that their ancestor's came here illegally, and did not come to work but to kill million of Native Americans and Mexicans in order to use the country for their own..

The Gadsen Flag was used plentifully in the civil was as a symbol of pro slavery among the confederate army. To the confederates this flag and slogan meant "don't invade on my right to own slaves and live the southern American lifestyle"

When you see this flag as an avatar, on someone's car or shirt, they are either uneducated sheep or know the meaning of it and are racist, unsymmetrical bigots.

[JessWonderin]

07:02 AM on 01/04/2012

well said and nicely put . . .

thanks

[marinemomof3]

07:36 AM on 01/04/2012

OR.....both !

Fav'd already a fan :)

[ShaggyAtl]

03:21 AM on 01/04/2012

The candidate supported by progressives — President Obama — himself holds heinous views on a slew of critical issues and himself has done heinous things with the power he has been vested. He has slaughtered civilians — Muslim children by the dozens — not once or twice, but continuously in numerous nations with drones, cluster bombs and other forms of attack. He has sought to overturn a global ban on cluster bombs. He has institutionalized the power of Presidents — in secret and with no checks — to target American citizens for assassination-by-CIA, far from any battlefield. He has waged an unprecedented war against whistleblowers, the protection of which was once a liberal shibboleth. He rendered permanently irrelevant the War Powers Resolution, a crown jewel in the list of post-Vietnam liberal accomplishments, and thus enshrined the power of Presidents to wage war even in the face of a Congressional vote against it. His obsession with secrecy is so extreme that it has become darkly laughable in its manifestations, and he even worked to amend the Freedom of Information Act (another crown jewel of liberal legislative successes) when compliance became inconvenient.

[Auntydee]

09:27 AM on 01/04/2012

ShaggyAtl, So you think PBO is a pretty mean guy.Is that what you are trying tosay??