bode well for mitt romney. if you look at experience, shares my values, 45% in 2008. another thing we can do with this wall, what did that mean? shares my values in 2008? mike huckabee. you see a lot of mike huckabee faces. mike huckabee was the winner then. one other thing we can show you that s going to be important, this born again versus evangelical christian vote. in 2008, 68% of voters said we are born again christians. the des moines register poll said about 30, 35% of voters were identifying that way. in 2008, that was powerful for mike huckabee and this time, that could bode well for someone like a rick santorum. one other thing here, it s like an ipad in a sense. you can zoom around. the top issue in 2008, the choices people had. illegal immigration, one-third of people. the most important issue, the war in iraq, the economy at 26%.
presence in that part of the state. down here. up here in the southeast corner. we watch these areas tonight. if senator santorum, if his kole lorks he s the purple candidate. if these areas are filling in purple, it means santorum is matching the experience of 2008, winning the christian conservative voters. that would put him on a path to a stronger performance, perhaps a victory. but the republican coalition is more complicated. 2008, we looked for establishment voters and evan je vel cal voters. you ll notice some areas overlap. rep the key. the darker the key, the higher percentage of voters that say they identify with the tea party. you see pockets here. up in the northern part of the state. a lot of this overlaps with where the evangelical voters are. who will come out tonight? will we have overall intensity? they want to beat barack obama next november, they want to see
this is decision day in iowa. just four hours from now, republicans will gather in caucuses across the state and cast the first votes in the 2012 campaign. the candidates have spent months of the trial paving the way with millions in campaign cash. much of that money has gone towards a barrage of negative advertising. now, in a final flurry of appearances, the rhetoric has reached a new peak or maybe a new low. you said mitt romney, somebody who will lie to you to get to be president will lie to you when they are president. i have to ask you, are you calling mitt romney a liar? yes. you re calling mitt romney a liar? you seem shocked by it. yes. why are you saying he s a liar? this is a man who s staff created the pack. his millionaire friends fund the pack. he pretends he has nothing to do with the pack. it s balogna. it s like his pretense that he s a conservative. wow. let s go live to our chief political correspondent, candy crowley. she s in des moines. you