In one of the closest candidate-selection ballots in US history, former Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney won out  over Rick Santorum at the Iowa caucuses, the nation’s first major electoral event of the year. Santorum and Romney switched between first and second frequently during the night, but a last-minute eight-vote tie margin put Romney ahead.

The eight-vote margin is especially telling when you consider that over 122 000 people turned out to vote.

Santorum isn’t too well known outside of Pennsylvania, so his near-defeat of Romney came a little out of left field – and a repeat performance isn’t expected. Both Santorum and Romney do seem to be campaigning on a platform of wanting to defeat Obama, so it’s nice that they have things in common.

Among the other candidates, Ron Paul landed a distant third place, ahead of New Gingrich, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, and John Huntsman (who didn’t even show up for these), respectively. The campaign now moves on to New Hampshire and South Carolina.

The Iowa caucuses are obviously only the first in a fairly lengthy, and expensive, candidate-selection process, but they do serve as a litmus test for a given candidate’s likelihood of success; hence while none of the candidates in third place and lower have officially stepped down yet, there are reports that Michele Bachmann may be dropping out early, and Rick Perry has announced that he will be returning to Texas to reassess his campaign.

The caucuses are also pretty indicative of the amount of money that the candidates can expect to be spending for the next couple of months; figures floating around suggest that Santorum spent around $1,65 on campaigning for every vote he got, where Romney spent $113,07. The unfortunate Rick Perry is spending $817 for every vote he gets.

[Sources: dmr / @mcpli / ap / abcnews ]