Iowa, Mitt Romney | featured news

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.

The Des Moines Register endorsed Mitt Romney for president on Saturday night, saying his "sobriety, wisdom and judgment" fit the times and outweigh what they called his tendency to "pick his way through the political minefields."

Mitt Romney may have some help in Iowa: Ron Paul. The Texas congressman's allies and others say that he drains support from the rising Newt Gingrich, and, if that turns out to be the case during the Jan. 3 caucuses and Paul manages to triumph here, the theory is that Romney would benefit in the long-run.

With just seven weeks to go before Iowa holds the first nominating contest of the GOP presidential primary, voters in the state remain ambivalent about their choices.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is trying to stay above the fray in the GOP nominating campaign. The former Massachusetts governor is visiting eastern Iowa counties he won in his 2008 bid for the state's leadoff caucuses. He's also sticking with his strategy of shadowing President Barack Obama and trying to present himself as the most electable Republican. Obama also visited eastern Iowa in the fall.

Republican front-runner Mitt Romney and U.S. Representative Michele Bachmann led a closely watched presidential poll of Iowa Republicans, the state that holds the first contest in the nomination battle.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney will not participate in a key test of strength in the early voting state of Iowa in August, his campaign said on Thursday.