the real winner in the caucuses, though it may have certainly been rick santorum who truly, within eight votes just missed the top spot. take a look at those numbers on your leaderboard. it's just absolutely miraculous. the closest iowa caucus vote in history. the top four, mitt romney, santorum, ron paul and newt gingrich. >> and it didn't become official until about 2:30 eastern time this morning if you were watching. so we have romney congratulating santorum. and he says that he and santorum are actually both winners. and both candidates are looking forward now to new hampshire, they say. >> but what's great about this is the story that comes out of such an incredibly close finish because you know what? it's about momentum. and it's about money. and it's about headlines. and those headlines tonight are bizarro. christine romans, you've been breaking down these headlines. we've been on the edge of our seats because we wasn't sure what the big story was going to be, and the big story is the story itself. the squeaker. >> the santorum surge that continued and also what voters were thinking. we have a better idea because of entrance polling. a lot of different questions they were asked on their way in to cast their vote. and one of the questions was asked was what's the most important quality for a candidate? you can see they said experience, a strong moral character. they were looking for a true conservative, these iowa republicans. and they were also looking for someone who could defeat obama. 31% said they were looking for someone that could defeat obama. so who are these voters who were voting for somebody because it was the most important candidate who could defeat obama? let's take a look. isn't this great, these little toys, you guys? the most important quality, could defeat obama. that went to romney, 48%. and newt gingrich who didn't fare overall, wasn't in the top three, of course, but 20% of the people voting for the most important quality, defeating the president, they cast their vote for gingrich. 13%, santorum, paul and perry. we have a lot of entrance polling. we can tell you we have a very good idea of what iowa vote rz were thinking and doing in those caucus sites. we'll be able to analyze it throughout the morning. >> nice work. boy, you've got your morning cut out for you. >> we're really looking forward to it. it's fun to use those and to understand what people were thinking. >> i'm no john king, but i'll do my best. >> you are so much prettier. >> i'm just going to go on record. you are way hotter. >> let's go first to our radio reporter live in des moines, iowa. you're going to tell us how people voted. what actually happened? this was a nail-biter till 2:30 in the morning. was it one precinct we were waiting for? >> reporter: how about that? there was one precinct we were waiting for. it was in clinton county, iowa. that's in the east. clinton county is most famous for at one point having the largeest sawmill in the world, setting a record with their fire response team. what seems to have happened, why this took so long is there was that one precinct with results that apparently the state he headquarters didn't tabulate. i spoke to the now famous edith pfeffer. she said we turned in those results around 7:40, 7:50. the problem seems to be that there were some tab lating issues here in des moines with the state headquarters. i guess they didn't realize that they didn't have those numbers. and this might happen a lot in elections. usually it all gets squared away the next day. but of course, here we were with an election resting on just a handful of votes. so every single precinct mattered. and when they discovered they were missing a couple, we had to wait and track down each one. also, and you can see and you're hearing video from, of course, all of the various candidate parties. it was so interesting because here were these ballrooms full of supporters all night waiting to see their candidates, and the candidates weren't sure what to say. especially santorum and romney. they finally came out when it was clear that this was virtually a tie. back to you. >> lisa, thank you very much for that. so, of course, this would be a critical time to chop it up, figure out what exactly happened. it is a photo finish, but there's a bigger story to it. we've got a couple of fantastic analysts. i figure mark preston probably hasn't slept in eight months. >> nine. nine more months. >> yeah, don't get too comfy, i suppose. john avlon. and rubin navarette in san diego, california. photo finish. i have two ideas going on in my very small braun. it's the story of ouch for newt ging and out for the bottom three. is that so off the mark? >> out for gingrich, but we knew that was going to happen. we saw him drop in the polls. then negative advertising took him down. michele bachmann tonight, though, didn't say she was going to get out. i was prepared to send out a tweet that said michele bachmann has said that she will leave. i had to pull it back down even before i hit send because she then said she was going to stay in the race. a short time after that rick perry, texas governor, said he's going to go back home and reassess his campaign. >> did you tweet that one? >> i did. it wasn't as dramatic. how can he get back in the race? >> and how can michele drop out in her home state, right? that's kind of tough to stay i'm going to call it quits here. >> certainly in politics, and john can speak to this a little bit, too, there's something to be said about waiting until tomorrow, getting the call from romney or santorum, perhaps gingrich asking for her support and then having her own concession speech her own night. tonight was not her night. >> concession speeches are usually nice and conciliatory. i think we've all been seeing flashes of newt gingrich we've all been talking about. he got a little bit persnickety. i don't know if we have that ready to go, but if we do, i want to play a little about what gingrich was saying. he's taking a pot shot at not only the president, which we all expect, but also at the other cann candidates. does this mean the end of mr. nice guy? >> it has to if he wants to stay in the race. the fact of the matter is, he never defended himself over the past couple weeks. we saw millions of dollars in television ads that went after his character. it assassinated him down. at this point if he wants to stay in, he has to appear like a fighter. his statesmanship helped get him to this point. remember back in june, his campaign was over. he decided to be the statesman. he was on the 12-plus nationally televised debates because of the way he came across and said he was united for the republican party, that helped him get where he was by the middle of december. however, the television advertising took him out. if he wants to be viable again, he'd better go after romney and santorum. >> if we could bring john avlon in. romney eked by. is this really a victory? john, what does this really mean? >> it's a really great and important question because people are using the phrase "virtual tie." let's put this in larger context. romney won by eight votes. romney actually got six votes less than he got four years ago in iowa. he's still the only man -- yeah, and millions of dollars. he outspent, if you add the associated pac, he outspent santorum. the establishment favorite. "the des moines register" endorsement. to beat santorum who hadn't really been on the map by eight months is almost a moral victory for rick santorum. when you compare it to his 2008 totals, not only did he lose ground on the map, romney didn't win them this year. he did well in the cities especially des moines. what's extraordinary is his vote total is less than it was four years ago. now, he's going into new hampshire. new hampshire is near hometown territory for romney. it's not going to be nearly as friendly for santorum. that 75% of the republican field that wants someone other than romney, that still exists. assuming rick perry gets out, it will be interesting how that vote coalesces. michele bachmann, she didn't get out last night, but she got only around 1,000 votes more than she got in the ames, iowa, straw poll back in august which is an extraordinary stat when you think about it. >> i want to hear from mitt romney. i know you've sort of been calling him -- john, mr. 25%. can't cut through that glass ceiling. what's going to happen with the splinter eed candidate group. it seemed to play through to his speech last night which essentially was, it's all about me taking on you, mr. president. it's all about i'm going after obama and not my fellow candidates. have a listen to this. >> you were working and i am working and we're all working together because of our passion for this country and our concern that it's being led by a president who may be a nice guy but just is over his head. and i look at his campaign -- you know, four years ago tonight, he was giving a victory celebration speech. here in des moines. and he had been going across the state making all sorts of promises. the gap between his promises four years ago and his performance is as great as anything i've ever seen in my life. >> all right. so rubin navarette, is this going to continue to be the strategy for mr. romney as he moves to new hampshire which he pretty much has a lock on, i think the last number said 43% lead. is it going to be just keep on going, just eye on the prize? >> at least half of the time. the strategy you see is going after obama. if romney had his druthers, he would have liked to go after obama all through his campaign and not said a word about any of his opponents. he didn't have that luxury. he had to respond to perry and gingrich by name. he didn't like doing that. now he wants to go back to his playbook and make this pretty much about obama. the problem with that is when you are still locked in a primary, in this case with people nipping at your heels, you often don't have that luxury. you can ignore santorum or gingrich all you want, but i assure you when they get to new hampshire, they won't be ignoring romney. he really doesn't have that luxury because they're closing in tight. >> well, we're trying to figure out what the focus is on santorum here. he was talking to wolf earlier tonight. and he sounds really optimistic about moving forward in new hampshire. and a lot of people say this is the real winner. let's listen in. >> thank you so much, iowa. you -- you, by standing up and not compromising, by standing up and being bold and leading, leading with that burden and responsibility you have to be first, you have taken the first step of taking back this country. this journey started officially just a few months ago in june when i stood on the steps of the county courthouse in somerset county, pennsylvania. i decided to go there, not the typical place someone announces for president. that's not where i was born. that's not where i ever lived. but it's where my grandfather came. back in 1925. he came by himself even though he was married with two children, one of them being my father. he came after having fought in world war i because mussolini had been in power now three years, and he had figured out that fascism was something that would crush his spirit and his freedom and give his children something less than he wanted for them. >> sounds like the winner speech, not the concession speech. >> you know why? because as he was delivering this, he was ahead. so that's why it sounds that way. >> that's so funny. we've enjoyed being up all night, which is not something i would normally say, getting prepared for a program, but watching the cnn election center team come in with these numbers. look at the teeny itsy bitsy numbers in the middle. yes, 25%, 25%, but mitt romney by a hair. eight votes between 30,015 votes and santorum, 30,007 votes. by the way, if you think that that is a record, we've got news for you. little not. there is another record out there that even beats this one. we're going to talk about that and a whole lot more in just a moment right here from the cnn election center. daddy, come in the water! somebody didn't book with travelocity, with 24/7 customer support to help move them to the pool daddy promised! look at me, i'm swimming! somebody, get her a pony! [ female announcer ] the travelocity guarantee. from the price to the room to the trip you'll never roam alone. welcome back to "early start." we are at the cnn election center. have you been up with us all night? because it has been quite a nail-biter. eight votes actually separated these two men, mitt romney is declared the winner, 30,015 votes. rick santorum, 30,007. of course, they're both at 25%. santorum is being called the real winner here. our christine romans is working really hard for us this morning. >> you're the iowan. and if anybody knows iowa, it's you, my friend. there's a real breakdown on how people voted and we know this because we had entrance polls where we can ask people questions as they're walking in. why were they voting certain ways? >> look, we talked to people about what you're thinking and why you're casting this vote on the way in right before they did it. we asked them all of these questions. what kind of experience they were looking for? when did you decide to support? we're going to go through all of these throughout the day. the best experience for president. it's so interesting, working in government, that's santorum, working in business, that is mitt romney. i want to take a look at specifically how it breaks down if we take these over here. let's look at working in business. this was the romney strong suit. 36% of those said, look, romney is the guy because he can do it in a tough economy. rick santorum came in second. ron paul, perry, gingrich, bachmann and huntsman. and here you go, santorum gets it if you're somebody who's voting because it's your time in congress, actually, right? he hasn't been a politician for a very long time. that's how that breaks down. romney getting the vote from people looking for someone who's got business experience and that business experience is something that led the charge in iowa. it's also interesting when you look at the breakdown of income. people who had more money, the higher-income voters, we wanted for mitt romney. people who were the lower end of the pay scale went for ron paul. interesting because probably those are young people who don't have an income or have much less of an income and then people more in the middle, the lunch bucket republicans, a new kind of republican vote in the midwest, those votes went to santorum. >> i've got to be honest with you. i'm always confused about entrance polls because they're going in with an answer to our questions. and then they're being swayed by the delegates who -- and, you know, the captains telling them why they shouldn't do what they thought they were going to do. >> our political guru said yesterday there will be people who change their minds, but by the time you walk in, you're making your decision mostly before you walk in the door. and then there's the trying to be swayed and the like, but those are the best gauge we have of what people were thinking when they came in and they cast their vote in there. of course, there will be -- and that's why you always tread cautiously with exit and entrance polls because this will be a few variations of what people said they were going to do and then did. but in this case, these look pretty clear that santorum was given the benefit for having his government experience, and it was business experience for mitt romney. >> thank you, christine. >> sure. as we're looking at newt gingrich with 21%, he said he was going to play mr. nice guy, right? because he thought that would work in his favor. so we heard a really different guy last night. let's take a listen. >> well, one other great debate. and that is whether this party wants a reagan conservative who helped change washington in the 1980s with ronald reagan and helped change washington in the 1990s as speaker of the house, somebody who is into changing washington, or we want a massachusetts moderate who, in fact, will be pretty good at managing the decay but has given no evidence in his years of massachusetts of any ability to change the culture or change the political structure or change the government. let me be clear -- i think it's important given all the things that were done in this state over the last few weeks. we are not going to go out and run nasty ads, 30-second ads. but i do reserve the right to tell the truth. and if the truth seems negative, that may be more a comment on his record than it is on poli c politics. so this is going to be a debate that begins tomorrow morning in new hampshire and will go on for a few months. and i'm convinced that the republican party will pick an heir of reagan, a committed conservative and somebody with a track record of changing washington. >> ah, go figure. and i just happen to have mr. gingrich's ad in "the new hampshire union leader," which, by the way, endorsed him, which is a big deal for him. yet he's really trailing in the new hampshire polls. it just says, "the choice." and if this were in color, newt gingrich would be in color and mitt radio not. and that's always a dead giveaway that that's kind of your first strike at your opponent. and then it says only a bold reagan conservative can defeat president obama. trying to sound very presidential. lenny mcallester joining our panel from des moines, iowa, i want you to jump in as well. lenny, so i don't understand how you can be in politics since the late '70s and not have learned your lesson that negative ads work. and if you're going to let people just beat up on you, you are going to suffer massively. but yet i don't see him turning the tables yet. >> well, because newt gingrich has the reputation of being a nasty politician. he has a lot of enemies within the republican party and all this baggage that the democrats will use against him. he can't necessarily go negative immediately in a way to defend himself quite the same way romney did when he was sliding down the polls. newt has to be more nuanced with this. he has to take a long-term approach to rebuilding his image and attacking his opponents. so he still cannot just pretty much go full barrels blazing the way he'd like to go. and you'll see a little more moderation from him hopefully and not necessarily allow these candidates to get under his skin and debate which is his strong suit coming up this weekend. >> we also have eric erickson of redstate.com. nice to see you this morning as well. let's talk about electability a little here. because that's the key word that everybody's throwing around now. who actually can beat president obama? as we head into new hampshire, who do you think that is? would it be a gingrich, or would it be a romney? >> lord, i'm not sure that it would be any of them. i mean, when you look at it, the narrative that romney has had working in his favor the whole time is that he's the most electable. according to the entrance polls, he lost republican voters to rick santorum by a point. he's now spent six years campaigning for president, and he's gone from 23% of the polls to 23% in the polls. that doesn't sound like electability. newt gingrich is such a wild card, though. there are a lot of republicans who are scared he'll implode along the way. i would not be surprised if iowans say we hate all of them. someone come rescue us. >> you ready? >> don't do this. >> i know, at 4:24 in the morning eastern time. i know that we don't have any really reliable recent polls for south carolina, but gingrich has been doing so well in that state. and it is that whole evangelical group, that uber message that's been resonating well, and yet it is the governor of that state who has endorsed him and is wildly popular in that state. going into south carolina, do you expect -- because i expect we're going to get polls on south carolina -- do you expect that gingrich is going to take a massive hit from his 13% showing tonight? >> let's look at south carolina from this perspective right now. the folks we thought would do very well down there was rick perry and michele bachmann. in fact, perry was supposed to leave iowa and hold three events in south carolina tomorrow. he would appeal to the evangelic evangelical, the born-again vote, people who identify themselves as that, as well as michele bachmann. it looks like perry has been taken off the table. michele bachmann is all but dead. >> is that true? is it really? >> the question is how can you go back to texas and reassess your campaign? we have two national televised presidential debates coming up saturday, sunday. i don't think you can go back to texas and reassess and then get back on the campaign trail. you've now sent a message to your support ersz that you don't think you have enough to keep going. at least michele bachmann left a little bit of the door open to at least stay in the race. but the fact of the matter is, it would be very hard for her to do so. who does that leave the door open to? rick santorum who was wildly popular with social conservatives certainly when he was in congress. he is very strong on anti-abortion. he's very good with the home schoolers. so you've got to expect that rick santorum will at least try to gobble up some of that support down there. now, a lot of people will say that newt gingrich is a son of the south. he was from georgia, but let's not forget, newt gingrich hasn't lived in georgia in a very, very long time. he does have the support, right? he does have the support of some of a lot of georgia legislators, but the fact is he's going to have to fight down there. but it comes down to this, and you talked about it earlier, electability. but the hit took newt gingrich which calls into question, is he electable? >> we've got to go to break. when we come back, we're going to talk about that. a lot more about santorum and also about gingrich saying that the republicans have to get together and have a debate before anybody decides who's going to debate obama in the future. so we're going to take a quick break here. and you are live at the cnn election center. much more when we come back. cou? tylenol: me, too. and nasal congestion. nyquil:what? tissue box (whispering): he said nasal congestion... nyquil: i heard him. anncr vo: tylenol cold multi-symptom nighttime relieves nasal congestion... nyquil cold & flu doesn't. with 1,770 precincts reporting, governor mitt romney received 30,015 votes. senator rick santorum received 30,007 votes. congratulations to governor mitt romney, winner of the 2012 iowa caucuses. congratulations to senator santorum for a very close second place finish in an excellent race here. and congratulations to congressman paul and all the other candidates who competed in the 2012 iowa caucuses. >> and that's what you call beating someone by the hair on your chinny chin chin. that is matt strong, chairman of the iowa caucuses, announcing the final result which took forever. we got it just about two hours ago. the election center has been awake all night. shazam, we have a winner. >> it was very exciting. i kept writing down the times when santorum was ahead, when we had romney ahead. it was a constantly moving target. christine romans is looking at all the folks who have voted at some of the polls. what are you finding there, christine? >> well, i'm trying to see what the most important issue is and how people voted based on the issues here. if you look at this, you can see health care, 4%. 4% of iowa gop voters said health care was most important. on the economy, 42%. here's the budget deficit. here's abortion. you see who wins those categories? boom, boom, boom. interesting, right? i want to look at the economy and the budget deficit in particular. and sort of break those down a little bit. a little bit closer. and you can see as we walk over on the other side here, interesting, right? it's romney, paul, santorum, paul, romney, santorum. the same three get the highest marks for handling the money issues of this country, our burgeoning budget deficit, our national debt and fixing the economy. but it's romney who does much better on those, overall on the economy. i told you just a few minutes ago that it was romney who got the vote, 48% for being his experience in business being a big boon to people who are those gop iowa voters. so just some interesting nuances that we're finding in these entrance polls and trying to figure out what these undecided until the last minute iowa voters were thinking about. in a moment, i'll tell you how undecided they were and who had their minds up as far back as december who they were going for in just a couple minutes. >> we talked about this i think yesterday, i don't remember. but i think you mentioned you were surprised or you thought that the economy was not going to be top on the issue here. >> jobs. >> jobs. >> jobs. people who were going to these caucuses were less concerned about not having a job. why? because the unemployment rate is 5.7% in iowa, it's the sixth lowest in the country. you've got farmland prices that are going crazy. $6,000, the cost of an acre of land. you've got this not burning job crisis. when they're talking about the economy, they're talking about the budget deficit, the direction of the policy, tax policy, what's going to happen in globalization, the cost of our farms and are we going to be creating jobs in the farm sector? so it's a little different in the midwest and specifically in iowa than it is in the rest of the country. so they do care about the economy. but jobs as issue number one is not the thing that was driving some of these folks here. i'll say something else. people in iowa were concerned about young people, about opportunity. we talked to a lot of different people at the caucus sites who said my kids or grandkids are leaving the state. they're worried about opportunity in general in the economy. they're not, though, crushed with 8.6% unemployment rate like the average for the rest of the country and certainly not like the unemployment ralts in some of the other parts where they'll be important to primaries coming up in nevada, in florida, south carolina and the like. >> thank you, christine romans. we talked a lot about soul searching and folks trying to figure out exactly who would be best for them. >> santorum and romney, some say they're both winners. others say, look, nice finish, okay? so you got eight votes, but you still lost, mr. santorum. they both had something to say as they came out of this sort of squeaky finish, but not before the complete squeaky finish. have a listen to what mitt romney had to say within the wee hours and also rick santorum. >> thank you, iowa, for the great send-off you're giving to us and to the others in this campaign. look, this is -- this is a campaign night where america wins. we're going to change the white house and get america back on track. >> you know that new hampshire's all about grass-roots politics, and we feel very good that we're going to climb that ladder just like we did here. >> so mark, let's talk about santorum here. because a lot of folks, you know, saying that this second place finish was really a pin for him. but we talked about electability. we have to talk about money. can he, in fact, have a campaign that can actually fight against a mitt romney and a newt gingrich? >> certainly not a mitt romney when it comes to money because he is worth so much money. let me just take a step back and say it was a win for mitt romney, and it was a win for rick santorum. and the reason why is that mitt romney didn't have that spend that much of his own campaign money. these super pacs came in and basically funded his campaign by taking out newt gingrich. so that was a win for him. look, he wasn't even going to play in iowa. he spent very little time here in iowa. and rick santorum who came out of nowhere. >> blew the whole bank. >> probably the $17 he had in his pocket. a couple things about rick santorum. one was, i saw rick santorum after the cnn/aei heritage debate that we held right before thanksgiving about foreign policy. rick sar santorum turned to me and said, preston, how did i do? i said fine. he was disgusted with me. what do you mean, fine? senator, you're fine. you're good. he said, you don't seem that happy. i said, senator, we are two days away from thanksgiving. >> right. >> you did great tonight. but i have to say, i was with him back in 2010 in june where he was by himself. he was here, ron paul was here. nobody else was in iowa at that time. and he gave this very impassioned speech to about 800 people who were not listening to him in the first 10 or 15 minutes. they were more busy trying to get their plate of food. and then he talked about his fait faith and how he had lost a child. and then he talked about how his child now was sick. and i've got to tell you, all of a sudden the audience got captivated. and that's the type of voters we see here in iowa. we just got back from iowa. people in iowa participate in caulks. they're evangelicals. rick santorum had their levels. >> mark just brought up a great point, and that is that rick santorum has a very heavy foreign policy position. he's very anti-iran. at some point i wonder if i'll hear him invoke the words of senator mccain, bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb iran. i don't know if that's going to play over well or if he'll stick with his evangelical message as he goes into new hampshire, what do you think? >> i think the foreign policy santorum hit is very popular with republican volters and a good chunk of democratic voters as well. certainly after 9/11, a lot of people in the power corridors of washington and new york have begun to take foreign policy seriously and a dangerous world very seriously. there's a lot of reasons i think to go after santorum, but i think when he goes on the foreign policy thing, he's on firm ground with a lot of those vote voters, particularly republican voters. mark is right, there was a turning point with that particular speech where people were eating and not paying attention and all of a sudden they started listening to him. he had this ability not just to go around to the 99 counties and do the retail politics, but when he spoke, he spoke from the heart. and remember this. the one thing that romney has working against him, no matter how much money he has and spends, people cannot relate to mitt romney. there's an inability for republican voters and others to relate to mitt romney. what rick santorum gave them was an ability, somebody they could relate to. he opened up. he opened himself up, talked about his personal life. he was very personal and vulnerable to them. and they responded to it. if he does that again in new hampshire and south carolina, watch out. >> so let's bring in john avlon. what do you think, john? do you think that is going to work in favor of santorum as he heads into new hampshire? do you think that's going to be key for him? >> well, look. rick santorum actually has spent more time in new hampshire on the ground than any other candidate except jon huntsman who, of course, has bet his whole campaign on a strong new hampshire showing. but the iowa caucus and the new hampshire primary electorate couldn't be more different. they represent opposite sides of the republican political spectrum. the iowa caucus disproportionately dominated by not only evangelicals but self-identified conservatives. just 16% describe themselves as centrist or moderate republicans. new hampshire is an open primary meaning independent voters can vote. independent voters make up 42% of the new hampshire electorate. and new hampshire is the least religious state in the nation. so while rick santorum's ground game's going to be important, and mike huckabee did pretty well there in 2008. he could start to coalesce that social conservative alternative to mitt romney vote. he might do well. he's put in moore time than people think. but the electorate is fundamentally different. one of the reasons romney is doing so well isn't just because he owns a house there, there's only one elected official there and his name is mitt romney. going back to 1952, the statewide electorate from the neighboring state wins. he's looking good headed into new hampshire. the question is who decamps to south carolina, who can really coalesce those social conservatives around them. yes, newt gingrich has nikki haley, but those numbers aren't as well some think. there's an opening there. they'll be competing for the evangelical vote, but both are catholics. now i think you're seeing a broader faith-based coalition. >> do you just wake up able to quote election results from the '40s? >> yes. >> it comes from trading baseball cards as a kid. it just translates into politics. >> no, there's something wrong with you. you're amazing. >> that's entirely possible. >> 4:40 in the morning eastern time and you're pulling that stuff out of your hat? i'm very impressed. we at cnn like to pride ourselves on blanketing the country with coverage when it comes to these first in the nation caucuses and primaries and then general election as well. and to that end, we dispatched our david mattingly to south carolina. two states ahead for you, just to make sure we got it all down. and there's a reason that he's in aiden, south carolina, because you are expecting to have a very busy story, mr. mattingly. you are expecting to have rick perry showing up there today. ain't going to happen. >> reporter: that's right. there was a reason for me being in aiken, and that reason has gone away. rick perry was supposed to be on the ground here. he was supposed to be on this very street walking down the street greeting and talking to voters before having a town hall meeting here in town later this afternoon. that's all on hold now as he's gone babb ck to texas to reasse. the chairman of the gop party here in south carolina yesterday was quoted as saying that the race here is still wide open, and nothing happened in iowa to change that at all. in fact, when south carolina voters wake up in the morning, they're going to find out that they're in exactly the position they wanted to be in to choose and be able to determine who actually speaks directly to and for the conservatives of the republican party. we've got mitt romney here. he's got the endorsement of governorer nikki haley. rick santorum has been on the ground here a lot already. this could be his land of second chances, a place where he can prove he's not just an iowa seven saying. something interesting, he polled very well last night among tea party voters. polling here in south carolina suggests that a lot of republicans, more than half much them, identify with some of the ideas of the tea party. but only about 15% of them are so actually identify themselves as tea party voters. so it's going to be very interesting to see how this state shakes out. but again, as i said just a couple of seconds ago, this is exactly where voters in south carolina wanted to be to actually be the kingmaker in this race to be able to decide who's truly going to be the front-runner. >> all right, dave mattingly live for us, appreciate it. we're going to check back in with you a little later. when we come back, we're going to talk about a big endorsement that is headed in mr. mitt romney's direction today. >> we're expecting it and we think we pretty much confirmed it. and by the way, total flip from 2008. total flip. is that a tease or is that a tease? come on back, baby. [ female announcer ] splenda® no calorie sweetener is sweet... and more. if you replace 3 tablespoons of sugar a day with splenda®, you'll save 100 calories a day. that could help you lose up to 10 pounds in a year. and now get even more with splenda® essentials, the only line of sweeteners with a small boost of fiber, or antioxidants, or b vitamins in every packet. just another reason why you get more... when you sweeten with splenda®. ♪ welcome back if you're just joining us. it's 4:46 in the east. and boy, do you ever wake up early. surprise. we have some news for you. >> yeah, we actually got up a little bit earlier on air today because we've been up all night watching all of this coverage. and do we have the poll to put it back up again to remind folks what actually happened while they were sleeping? >> not a poll, a leaderboard. >> i'm sorry. >> it's an amazing result and i think the most amazing story is that we have a result because it took forever. >> 2:30 in the morning i think it was finally called. there it is, mitt romney, 30,015 votes and santorum, 30,007. only eight votes separate them. we're going to do a little trivia later to see if you can guess if this is -- >> the record. >> yeah, the record that happened. do you think yes or no? i think you know, right? >> i know it ain't. you know what? i was starting to get, like, sweaty palms because as they were locking at these numbers all night and then they went to cnn after dark, i started thinking oh, no, this is the bush/gore. but they don't recount votes. it's just one by one by one. >> that's what took so long because it was the last precinct. back and forth, back and forth. >> i'm a new american so i am the most biased voters among us. if you ever thought your vote didn't count, eight people -- eight people in iowa made a difference. it's actually li lly like a rem statistic. like you said, we're going to give you the actual record in a bit. meantime, we want to get you out to manchester, new hampshire. i love iowa but we're already moving on. that's just the way it works. our correspondent dan lothian is standing by live in new hampshire. there's interesting new movement in the numbers in new hampshire, aren't there, dan? >> reporter: that's right. i mean, we take a look at the most recent polling here, mitt romney has remained a strong double-digit leader here in the state of new hampshire for quite some time. and when you look at the new polling, he consistently continues to be at 47%. so no change there since the early numbers in early december. but take a look at rick santorum's numbers where in early december he was at 5%. now the latest number's having him at 10%. and that is, of course, what everyone is paying attention to here in the state of new hampshire. he was at mr. santorum's headquarters last night. of course, every there all excited, watching the numbers coming in. and now they're talking about will that translate into supporters growing here on the ground in new hampshire? they believe that this will create an opportunity for more people to give senator santorum a second look. now, let's go back to the front-runner who's been that way now for quite some time, as i mentioned. the reason that he has been a front-runner here, mitt romney, for so long is that he has been campaigning here for years. remember, he was campaigning here in 2008. he came in second place. in addition to that, he has a summer home here in new hampshire. he's a former governor of a neighboring state of massachusetts. and so he has spent a lot of time on the ground here. he doesn't have to introduce himself to the voters of new hampshire. they already know who he is. and so that's one of the reasons that he has been leading with such a wide margin here in new hampshire. the big question is, will the dynamics of what happened in iowa translate here? and, of course, the big push starts today here in new hampshire as the new hampshire voters start to take a second look at these candidates based on what happened in iowa. >> i love dan, i love that you just said in 2008, mr. romney came in second. because he not only just came in second, he came in second to senator mccain. and it was bitter bitter chicken dinner. it was not a fun thing to watch. but today, it's a big old flip-flop. and in fact, dan, stand by for a second. today you would never have expected what's going to happen with senator mccain given what happened in 2008. >> there's a big endorsement headed his way. we're going to talk about that when we come back with our panelists. we've got a lot of people following all of this coverage for us and with us. so we're going to take a quick break. when we come back, we'll have much more on that. >> live from the election center. urize, improve the health of your skin with aveeno daily moisturizing lotion. the natural oatmeal formula goes beyond 24-hour moisture. it's clinically proven to improve your skin's health in one day, with significant improvement in 2 weeks. for healthy, beautiful skin that lasts. i found a moisturizer for life. [ female announcer ] aveeno daily moisturizing lotion. and for healthy, beautiful hair, try nourish plus haircare. only from aveeno. hi, everybody, welcome back to the cnn election center. we're live at 4:53 eastern time. and no, you're not, you know, looking at your clock wrong. we're on an hour early. we've been live all night. the election center has been abuzz because we had a little bit of a standoff for a while. we didn't have numbers until only about 2 1/2 hours ago. >> let's take a look at the leaderboard. in case you missed it, in case you were sleeping, this is what happened. actually at 2:30 in the morning, finally mitt romney, eight votes ahead of rick santorum. there are the numbers for you. 30,015 to 30,007. big news. >> when she says eight votes, you did hear right. not 8%. eight votes. so your vote matters, folks. if that doesn't energize you to get to the polls or to your caucuses as this season kicks off, i don't know what else would. but listen, if you think eight votes is a record, it is for iowa. but it isn't a record for the greatest united states. the greater united states, shall i say. the record is actually guam in 2008. in guam, barack obama beat hillary clinton by -- >> seven votes. >> can you believe it? a record by one vote. >> we were shocked when we read that this morning, by the way, because we thought there's just no way. >> i thought, you're blind. get some glasses. it's votes. we were having fun with the numbers this morning because that's what geeky wonks do. we have other thing coming out that might affect the numbers. senator mccain ran away with new hampshire in 2008 and trounced his opponent, mitt romney. and today, he's going to be doing something else for mitt romn romney. he's going to be giving him a lending hand. >> yeah, finally, he's scheduled to endorse him today. you know, it was big news because nobody expected it to happen. and here we are. so we want to talk about that. are we going to bring in our political panelists? >> i don't know if i remember it being as bitter, but mark preston, look, you're the guy who watches this for a living. >> can we start with john avlon on this one, would you mind? can you chime in on this? are you surprised? >> sure. i'm not surprised because this has been rumored for some time. and the timing going into new hampshire makes sense. but don't underestimate the amount of bad blood. and that's what ashleigh was referring to. we just heard newt gingrich give that angry speech, really feeling the personal animus towards romney. four years ago i was working for giuliani when he was running. and i don't think it's a big secret to say that the folks who ran against mitt romney last time didn't walk away with a lot of love for him because of the sense he would take a low blow if he needed to, especially in' debate. and romney on paper would have made a lot of sense as a vp choice for mccain, especially with the economy emerging in the fall. but there was that kind of bad blood. so this is an attempt to heal the rift. it makes a lot of sense in terms of coalescing the center right around mitt romney to the exclusion of jon huntsman. but my guess, it's probably a bit of a bitter pill for mccain to swallow. he's going to do it in the interest of unifying the party. >> i was reading this morning it's actually somebody within romney's camp that was working on this for a while to make it happen. did you hear anything about that? >> this had been buzzed for a while. there was rumor it was going to happen a couple of weeks ago. but, of course, it really makes the most sense to do it in new hampshire. not that romney actually needs the bump in new hampshire because he's had that sizeable double-digit lead for months now. new hampshire is really the heart of mccain country. i mean, this is where he pulled off that lazaruslike reversal in 2008. it's where he beat george w. bush by nine points in 2008. it's a good place to do it. it's the sign of the center right coalescing around mitt romney. >> seriously, again, the lazaruslike -- how does your brain work at three minutes to 5:00 in the east, john avlon? honestly, i don't believe you're able to pull that one off. have you got a few more in the can for us coming up? >> i hope so. >> like any political writer, what is the revival of a dead campaign? you go lazarus. >> and you know what? rudy giuliani is dying right now you're not working for him. we have to take a break. we'll analyze the numbers a little more. do you remember a guy named ron paul? we'll talk about that as well coming up from the election center.