The Iowa caucus, which was not decided until 2:30 a.m., goes down in history as the closest presidential primary season vote in history. And the closeness of the outcome – Mitt Romney by 8 votes over Rick Santorum – provided only part of the excitement.
For those who missed it, early in the night the race was a three-way tie between Romney, Santorum and Ron Paul at 23 percent each. While Paul eventually faded, Romney and Santorum both maintained approximately 25 percent of the vote and traded the lead back and forth, back and forth.
At times, the margin was three votes, 13 votes, 46 votes – always less than 100 (by my recollection) for several hours.
It reminded me of the 1990 nail-biter between John Engler and Jim Blanchard, with Engler declaring victory in the Michigan governor’s race at about 6 a.m. And, of course, it was very reminiscent of the craziness that surrounded Election Night 2000 when Al Gore withdrew his concession to George W. Bush.
In Iowa, the lead changed hands so often that, as Santorum took to the stage at about 12:30 a.m. (an odd move, since the finish was still in doubt) his minimal lead disappeared as he was speaking live on national TV. The ongoing tally board provided by the cable networks (in a split-screen format) showed Santorum’s 1st place mantle lost just as he was thanking God for his success in Iowa.
At 3:04 a.m., CNN reported that Iowa 2012 was the closest Republican presidential contest in history, beating the 1936 South Dakota primary, won by Alf Landon with a 257-vote margin. According to CNN Polling Director Keating Holland, it’s also the closest Iowa caucus result in history. The previous record was set in 1980, when the elder George Bush beat Ronald Reagan by about 2 percentage points.
Before Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, the second closest caucus was the 1996 vote when Bob Dole beat Pat Buchanan by 3 percentage points. Dole’s 26.3 percent that year had the distinction of being the lowest winning percentage in caucus history. Of course, Romney broke that record, and Santorum, with nine more votes, also would have set a new mark.
On the Democratic side, the closest presidential vote came in 2008 when Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton in the Guam caucus by seven votes.
But, obviously the Guam contest is no contest compared to Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status. What’s more, I did the math. Romney captured 24.55114 percent of the caucus vote on Tuesday; Santorum had 24.54459 percent. That’s a margin of about six-hundredths of 1 percent (0.0655). And that is nearly 2 ½ times closer than the percentage gap between Obama and Clinton in the ’08 Guam caucuses (0.16).
The reason is simple: eight votes separated the two Iowa candidates in an election that attracted more than 122,000 voters. The Guam caucus four years ago had just 4,500 participants.
Which brings up another notable item from Tuesday’s vote: This year’s caucus set a record for turnout, with 122,255 total votes cast compared to the previous record for the GOP caucus, set in 2008, at 119,000 votes.
On another note, there was the story of the two Clinton County GOP election officials who were summoned from their sleep after midnight when the Iowa Republican Party discovered that some of the county’s votes still were not reported. The two women assured the party that all results were sent early, at about 7:30 p.m., and they shared their story live on CNN.
Here are portions of the timeline, based on tweets and CNN’s live blogging from Iowa:
12:09 a.m. ET: Santorum spokesman says he’s not coming out until all votes counted. “Very encouraged” spokesman says.
12:22 a.m. ET – Santorum, at his campaign headquarters in Johnson, Iowa, begins his remarks by saying “Game on,” before thanking his wife, God and the voters of Iowa for making his candidacy possible.
12:40 a.m. ET – Romney, in his remarks, thanks the voters of Iowa for the campaign send-off before repeating his standard stump speech.
1:37 a.m. ET – One vote currently separates Romney and Santorum, with 99 percent of the precincts reporting.
1:14 a.m. ET – According to Iowa GOP Spokesman Doug Heye: “There are currently 2 precincts outstanding – 1 in Clinton Co, 1 in Keokuk. As soon as they are counted, Iowa GOP will make an announcement.”
1:46 a.m. ET – Ari Fleischer says: “This race has to end in a tie. It seems only fair.”
1:58 a.m. ET – Santorum now up by four votes.
2:01 a.m. ET – Frustrated chairwoman of the Clinton County GOP tells CNN the results were sent at 7:36 p.m. to Republican ballot-counting headquarters.
2:16 a.m. ET – About two dozen Romney campaign staff ran out onto the now empty floor at his HQ and started cheering and high-fiving in celebration.
2:18 a.m. ET – Romney camp says it’s been told by the state GOP that he will win by 14 votes.
2:33 a.m. ET – Republican Party of Iowa Chairman Matt Strawn announced that Romney won the Iowa caucuses by eight votes, 30,015 to 30,007, over Santorum.
