IOWA | Mitt Romney vann Iowa med åtta (!) röster. Romney fick 30,015 röster medan Rick Santorum landade på 30,007. På tredje och fjärde plats kom Ron Paul respektive Newt Gingrich.
Och varför vann då Mitt Romney? Tydligen för att både de kristet socialkonservativa och Tea Party-anhängarnas röster splittrades upp på flera olika kandidater.
Så här skriver Ronald Brownstein på The National Journal:
In recent years, though, the most important divide in Iowa Republican politics has been the distance between voters who identify as evangelicals and those who don’t. Evangelical Christians, according to the exit poll, comprised almost exactly the same preponderant majority of voters here as in the 2008 contest: 58 percent this time, compared to 60 percent then.
Romney slightly improved his 2008 showing among voters who don’t identify as evangelicals: he captured 33 percent then, and drew 38 percent this time, according to the exit poll. Romney actually managed even less support this time than last among those who do identify as evangelical Christians: he won 19 percent last time, but was polling only 14 percent in this round of the exit polls.
That could presage a lasting headache for Romney with those voters, many of whom question his Mormon religion or his commitment to socially conservative causes, or both: evangelicals cast about 45 percent of the total vote in the 2008 GOP primaries, according to a cumulative analysis of exit polls conducted by ABC News. But Iowa also hints at the potential saving grace for Romney with those voters. In 2008, Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister himself, captured 46 percent of Iowa evangelicals, enough to power a solid victory in the caucuses.
To a far greater extent, those voters divided this year. Santorum captured the most of them, according to this round of exit polls, but only reached 32 percent. After that, Iowa evangelicals split between Paul (19 percent), Gingrich and Romney at (14 percent) and Perry at 13 percent. (Michele Bachmann, who ran a campaign aimed heavily at those voters, won just 6 percent of them.)
[…]
It was a similar story among the most ardent tea party activists, who have consistently expressed skepticism about Romney in national and state polls. Among the nearly one-third of caucus-goers who identified as strong tea party supporters, Romney attracted just 14 percent. But those voters again divided, with Santorum leading among them with a modest 30 percent. Voters who described themselves as somewhat supportive of the tea party fractured into a three-way split, with Santorum slightly leading Romney and Paul. Meanwhile, Paul and Romney held a solid lead over Santorum among the roughly one-fourth of caucus-goers who said they were neutral on the tea party.
the Campaign Dossier 
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