The projected winner of the Tuesday night Iowa caucus was declared as Mitt Romney.
Romney is the former governor of Massachusetts, who came out victorious over former Senator Rick Santorum (Republican from Pennsylvania) by a margin of eight votes. The Iowa GOP released the final numbers on Wednesday morning. Those numbers show that Romney acquired 30,015 votes while Santorum acquired 30,007 votes.
Even though Romney won, he did not acquire 25 percent of the vote. Romney pulled in 24.6 percent of the vote with 99.5 percent of precincts reporting. Santorum pulled in 24.5 percent of the vote. A record for Iowa Republicans was set as 122,000 straw ballots were cast last night.
When Iowa picks its 25 delegates to the GOP convention next summer in Tampa, the results are not binding. Romney will be able to bring 13 delegates and Santorum will be able to bring 12.
Before the vote was held last night, polls released recently showed Romney keeping a slim lead on U.S. Representative Ron Paul (Republican from Texas) and on Santorum. Paul came in third in the vote.
Romney spent $10 million for his campaign in Iowa back in 2008 but wound up in second place behind Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas Governor.