Republican, Mitt Romney | featured news

In the closest finish in the history of the Iowa caucuses, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum were locked in a virtual dead heat in the first battle for the Republican presidential nomination... Ron Paul, nearly doubling his Iowa vote from 2008, was a close third.

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who led Iowa and national polls in November, said Monday he did not expect to win Tuesday's Iowa caucuses, but will declare victory because he has survived an onslaught of negative advertising.

Iowa’s most influential poll shows that Tuesday’s caucuses are Mitt Romney’s to lose, but that Rick Santorum may be emerging as a last-minute and powerful threat.

It was standing room only as Mitt Romney briefly took time out from Iowa to campaign in Republican strongholds in New Hampshire, where he holds a wide lead approaching the state's first-in-the-nation primary.

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich's campaign struggled to fend off more bad news on Tuesday after he was quoted supporting main rival Mitt Romney's healthcare reform in Massachusetts.

Mitt Romney swatted at Ron Paul on Wednesday, a shift for the candidate who has largely ignored the Texas congressman and a possible sign at the shifting nature of the race in the state that in less than a week holds the first presidential voting contest in the nation.

After a campaign effort that has defied convention and angered top Iowa Republicans, Mitt Romney is well-positioned to emerge as a big winner in Tuesday's presidential caucuses. The tightest GOP caucus contest in decades features Romney, Ron Paul and a fading Newt Gingrich in a virtual tie for the lead, making the final days of politicking unusually consequential. And another candidate, Rick Perry or Rick Santorum, could get hot at the end and knock one of the favorites out of the top three.

Former President George H.W. Bush says Mitt Romney is the "best choice" for the GOP presidential nomination, but stopped short of giving a formal ...

Mitt Romney says if Newt Gingrich can't stand the heat coming from his allies, then just wait until President Obama starts coming. "This is politics, and if you can't stand the heat in this little kitchen, wait until the Obama Hell's Kitchen turns up the heat," Romney said on Fox News . He made similar comments later on MSNBC.

Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are tied at the top of the Republican pack to win their party's presidential nomination, each with 20 percent of GOP primary voters' support, according to the latest CBS News Poll. Ron Paul takes the third spot with 10 percent, while the remaining candidates enter the holiday period languishing in the single digits.