After Iowa, Romney Vaults Out in Front

...And a lot of spin afterward

(NEWSER) - History suggests that it doesn’t matter who actually wins tonight in Iowa—it matters who exceeds expectations, or fails to meet them. The media is always flabbergasted by strange Iowa finishes, but they shouldn’t be, writes Nate Silver of the New York Times , because thanks to unreliable polls they happen all the time, and seem especially likely this year. “A wide range of outcomes remain possible in Iowa even at this late hour,” he warns, and as you can see, his final predictions contain wide margins of error: More»

What's at stake for whom, and how to read the tea leaves

(NEWSER) - Tonight’s the night! At 7pm CT, Iowa Republicans will gather to cast the first votes in the Republican nominating season. Consider this your pregame report, with info from Politico , Mother Jones , and the Des Moines Register :

• The frontrunners: Polls show Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum are poised to grab the proverbial “three tickets out of Iowa.” Romney doesn’t need to win to remain the favorite for the nomination, but anything less than a respectable second will be damaging.

Anti-Romney voters might have found their candidate

(NEWSER) - Mitt Romney snatched an 8-vote victory in Iowa , but a lot of analysts say "man of the hour" Rick Santorum looks like the real winner. He can now portray himself as the clear alternative to Romney, and to win the nomination he "won’t have to outrun the bear, as the old joke goes, he’ll just have to outrun Mitt," a GOP strategist tells Politico . Other takeaways from last night:

• But Santorum shouldn't gloat just yet, writes James Hohmann for Politico, because this pesky thing called reality is also in the room. "He doesn’t have the money or infrastructure to keep up with Romney in New Hampshire, and he hasn’t been in South Carolina since Nov. 12." Sure, he'll grab a ton of headlines this week, but he needs to "dramatically expand his campaign apparatus virtually overnight."

Ron Paul finishes third

(NEWSER) - Mitt Romney has prevailed in what could well be the closest primary or caucus result ever. With the final precinct reporting, Iowa's GOP says Romney has beaten Rick Santorum by just eight votes, with 30,015 to Santorum’s 30,007 out of a total of 122,255 votes cast. Politico (via AP) ranks the candidates in this order:

• Mitt Romney, 24.6%
• Rick Santorum, 24.5%
• Ron Paul, 21.4%
• Newt Gingrich, 13.3%
• Rick Perry, 10.3%
• Michele Bachmann, 5%
• Jon Huntsman, .6%

Gingrich flip-flops on winning as Iowa rivals make final push

(NEWSER) - It's crunch time in the cornfields, and while polls show Newt Gingrich in fourth place, the candidate yesterday said he may still "pull off one of the greatest upsets in the history of the Iowa caucuses." The upbeat tone, however, only came after a supporter asked him to stop publicly declaring that he won't win, Politico notes. Mitt Romney, meanwhile, told supporters: "We're going to win this thing," the Des Moines Register reports. Campaign aides later said that the "thing" Romney meant was the nomination, not the Iowa caucuses. More»