The Iowa Republican caucuses are underway, and we'll be liveblogging the results as they come in.
Click here for our handy guide to the nuts-and-bolts of caucus procedures.
With 96.22% reporting, it's Santorum 29,051 (25%), Romney 28,938 (25%), and Paul 25,121 (21%).
Results: AP | CBS | CNN | DMR | Google | NYT | Politico
8:49 PM PT (jeffmd): SSP Labs (a division of Daily Kos Elections) has been cranking behind the scenes, of course. We're at the point where we can comfortably run linear projections for parts of counties that have yet to report; doing so using the 96.22% reporting figure shows a Romney win by 85 votes.
8:52 PM PT (Steve Singiser): Fun fact: four candidates will carry at least one county. Predictably, the top three (Santorum, Romney, and Paul) won multiple counties. Newt Gingrich, in fourth place, did not carry a single county. But Rick Perry, running a distant fifth, did manage to win a couple of counties. He carried smallish Taylor and Union counties in the southwestern quadrant of the state.
8:58 PM PT (Steve Singiser): After a dizzying few hours, we've hit a lull. Worth noting: with about 70 caucuses left to report, the majority of them are in counties Mitt Romney has carried to date. Which means, simply, that this will be very, very close.
8:59 PM PT:
9:00 PM PT (Steve Singiser): Whoa. Looks like the Iowa caucuses might have claimed their first victim. Rick Perry sounds like a man who might be on his way out the door.
9:03 PM PT: The liveblogging continues in the next thread.