Mitt Romney, left, and Rick Santorum are shifting their focus to New Hampshire after a 1-2 finish in Iowa.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- NEW: Bachmann suspends her campaign after sixth-place Iowa showing
- NEW: Perry tells supporters, "Here we come South Carolina"
- Santorum uses Iowa to position himself as Romney's main conservative challenger
- Romney will be endorsed by John McCain on Wednesday
CNN's John King talks with Rick Santorum about his surge in the polls, his photo-finish showing in the Iowa caucuses, and how he plans to continue the momentum, at 6 p.m. ET Wednesday on "John King, USA."
(CNN) -- A reshaped Republican presidential race shifted to New Hampshire on Wednesday as Mitt Romney sought to cement his front-runner status and Rep. Michele Bachmann announced she was dropping out of the contest.
"Last night, the people of Iowa spoke with a very clear voice," Bachmann told supporters in West Des Moines after a sixth-place finish in that state's Tuesday night caucuses. "So I have decided to stand aside."
The Minnesota congresswoman ended up with 5% of the vote in her native state, far behind Romney, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and Texas Rep. Ron Paul. In suspending her campaign, she vowed to continue fighting what she called President Barack Obama's "agenda of socialism."
Santorum, meanwhile, used fresh momentum from his virtual first-place tie in Iowa to try to position himself as Romney's main conservative challenger. Paul used his strong third-place finish as fuel for his libertarian anti-establishment message, while fourth-place finisher Newt Gingrich vowed to battle on to South Carolina.
Fifth-place Iowa finisher Rick Perry announced to supporters that he would press on as well, telling supporters on Twitter that "the next leg of the marathon is the Palmetto State ... Here we come South Carolina!!!"
Next Tuesday's New Hampshire primary appears to be Romney's to lose. The former Massachusetts governor benefits from a virtual favorite-son status there, not to mention a significant advantage in terms of campaign cash and organization. He is far ahead in most recent statewide polling and can now boast of a first-place finish in the Iowa caucuses, albeit by a razor-thin eight-vote margin.
Romney is expected to be endorsed in New Hampshire on Wednesday by Arizona Sen. John McCain, the GOP's nominee four years ago. McCain has a long track record of success in the Granite State, winning the Republican primary there in both 2000 and 2008.
Also waiting for Romney in New Hampshire: former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who skipped Iowa and has focused all of his hopes on the small New England state.
Romney told CNN on Wednesday morning that he was "feeling terrific."
Moving forward, "people are going to ask us about the differences on our positions on issues and backgrounds and so forth," Romney said. "But, really, if we talk about what the American people want to hear, it's how we're going to be different than President Obama when it comes to getting the economy going, preserving America's security abroad and making sure we rein in the scale of the federal government."
For his part, Santorum told CNN's Wolf Blitzer early Wednesday that he's a "little bit behind the curve in the sense that Gov. Romney has been spending a lot of money and a lot of time up (in New Hampshire) and has been running for six years.
"But we feel like we can go up there and compete," he said. "New Hampshire is all about grass-roots politics, and we feel very good that we are going to climb that ladder, just like we did" in Iowa.
Santorum's team is also turning its sights to South Carolina, where the first Southern primary is scheduled for January 21. His website Wednesday automatically took visitors to a donation page celebrating the "Iowa Surprise" and saying Santorum proved "he is the only conservative who can beat Mitt Romney."
Paul, meanwhile, told CNN that his success in Iowa shows "the message of liberty is appealing to everybody across the board."
In New Hampshire, he said, "I think we're going to have some momentum and we're going to continue to do what we're doing. It's a 'live free or die' state. They're very freedom-oriented, and that message will spread there. And I'm confident we will do quite well."
While a number of observers predicted a close finish in Iowa, few expected the margin between the top two finishers to be as close as it was. Romney finished with 30,015 votes while Santorum ended the night with 30,007, according to the state GOP. Both candidates had roughly 25% of the total vote. Paul, a Texas congressman, had 21% of the vote, while Gingrich ended up with 13%.
Perry finished at 10%, while Huntsman trailed the rest of the pack at 1%.
State GOP officials said certified results will be released in two weeks.
The closest previous margin of victory in a GOP presidential contest was 257 in 1936, when Alf Landon won the 1936 South Dakota primary. In 2008, Obama earned the closest-ever margin in a U.S. presidential contest, defeating Hillary Clinton by seven votes in the Guam caucus.
Of the 25 pledged delegates at stake in Iowa, CNN estimates that Romney, Santorum and Paul are each projected to have won seven, with Gingrich and Perry winning two. It will take 1,144 delegates to win the nomination at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida, this summer.
One issue to watch on the Republican side will be how many supporters of less-successful candidates latch on to the remaining non-Romney candidates, said CNN political contributor Ari Fleischer, who was a White House press secretary under President George W. Bush.
"Mitt Romney doesn't want anybody to drop out," Fleischer said Tuesday, suggesting that Romney would want to have any anti-Romney vote split as many ways as possible. "Rick Santorum wants everybody to drop out."
Meanwhile, Obama, who is not expected to face a major challenge for the Democratic nomination, spoke to Democratic caucus-goers in Iowa in an interactive video teleconference Tuesday night.
He touted the end of the war in Iraq, health care reform and making college more affordable as some of his achievements -- a similar message to the "promises" campaign video rolled out this week.
"In some ways, I'm more optimistic now than I was when I first ran, because we've already seen change take place," the president said. "And part of what 2012 is about is reminding the American people how far we've traveled and the concrete effects that some of our work has had in terms of making sure people have health insurance and making sure our troops are coming home, or making sure people are able to go to college.
"Part of it is also framing this larger debate: What kind of country are we going to leave for our children and grandchildren?"
CNN's Alan Silverleib, Peter Hamby, John Helton, Gabriella Schwarz, Shawna Shepherd, Paul Steinhauser, Shannon Travis, Jim Acosta, Jessica Yellin, Jason Hanna and Keating Holland contributed to this report.
Source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/cnn_allpolitics/~3/5eED0UrirWg/index.html
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