Results: AP | CBS | CNN | DMR | Google | NYT | Politico | Daily Kos
10:45 PM: 90% of 1174 precincts in: Romney 25% | Paul 21% | Santorum 25%
Note* Paul projected to finish 3rd, still way too close to call between Mitt and Rick
Note* .. this is looking to be three way tie no matter who tops out tonight. In 4th place is Gingrich 13%, then Perry 10%, Bachmann 6%, and Huntsman 1%. Word is rampant Bachmann’s staff will urge her to quit after tonight.
9:45 EDT: 479 of 1774 precincts: Romney 23% | Paul 23% | Santorum 23%
Note* less than 30% of Polk County is in, it alone accounts for one-fifth of the state
9:15 EDT: 266 of 1774 precincts: Romney 23.2% | Paul 24% | Santorum 23%
9:04 PM EDT: MSNBC reporting sources close to Michelle Bachmann will urge her to drop out after Iowa
8:55 PM EDT: Four percent of 1774 precincts in: Mitt Romney 22% | Ron Paul 24% | Rick Santorum 24%
8:40 PM EDT: Stump speeches have been suspended. Voting has commenced, we’re gonna start getting some numbers in the next few minutes.
8:00 PM EDT: The candidates and their surrogates are now speaking to thousands of Iowans, in afew minutes the doors will close and voting will begin in earnest. And being the sentimental slob that I am, what struck me wasn’t solemn witness to the GOP clown car. Rather, I’m reminded just how proud and lucky we are to live in a time and a place where We the People choose our leaders. For millennia these contests of power were not decided at a ballot box, they were determined by clubs to the face, swords through the chest, and bullets in the head. A small band of men bet their lives and sacred honor to chnage all that, they were called radicals and dreamy eyed idealists. But they prevailed. Not only are we practicing their vision of democracy on a grand scale this evening, leaving that barbaric past far behind, we are the nation which invented the current incarnation of that form of governance, now copied far and wide all over the world.
7:30 AM EDT: The doors have swung wide in about 1800 precincts for caucuses being held at schools, churches and even a handful of private homes in the Hawkeye State. No firm time on when results will begin trickling in. If I don’t collapse from exhaustion, more soon.
10:50 and we still have a tie between a pair of mittens and a frothy mixture of fecal material and lubricant.
Romney has won according to SBS world news on TV here in Oz :
(Yeah, confirmed online too.)
Romney was in a near tie with Santorum – 25% each then Ron Paul (21%) and Newt Gingrich (13%) plus it looks like both Rick Perry and maybe also Michelle Bachman will be ending their campaigns here with miserable failures for the pair of them. less schedenfreudaliciously, Jon Huntsman, the most reasonable and moderate of all the candidates on offer (from what I gather) has finished – predictably – dead last.