Recount gives Santorum edge in Iowa caucuses

CHARLESTON, S.C. — In a stunning turn of events, Rick Santorum now appears to have won the Iowa caucuses, though the state’s Republican Party says there are too many holes in the results for them to ever be able to say for certain.

The party, which runs the caucuses, has done a recount since the Jan. 3 voting, and told the Des Moines Register the tally now shows Mr. Santorum up by 34 votes. On caucus night the party said Mitt Romney had won by eight votes.

The news dents Mr. Romney’s air of inevitability — he had claimed he’d gone two-for-two in the first nominating contests, and was poised to try to land a knockout punch with a victory in South Carolina’s primary on Saturday.

Still, he was claiming a victory of sorts Thursday morning.

“The results from Iowa caucus night revealed a virtual tie,” Mr. Romney said in a statement. “I would like to thank the Iowa Republican Party for their careful attention to the caucus process, and we once again recognize Rick Santorum for his strong performance in the state.”

The deadline for final certification of the results was Wednesday. Party officials said eight precincts failed to follow the rules and fill out the official forms on caucus night, meaning those results can never be certified, while other precincts turned in forms that didn’t meet the legal requirements.

“It’s a split decision,” Chad Olsen, the party’s executive director, told the Register, which was given the final results Wednesday, a day ahead of when the party was to release them.

The party has been frantically recounting votes since reports first emerged that the late-night eight-vote tally was inaccurate.

Officials told the Register that there, even now, are still too many holes to be able to certify the final results.

That is likely to become a black mark against Iowa’s claim to first-in-the-nation status. But in reality the results of the caucuses don’t actually matter to the process of selecting delegates to the national nominating convention in Tampa this summer. Those delegates will be chosen in later conventions at the congressional district level and, eventually, a state convention.

And even if the results were binding, both Mr. Romney and Mr. Santorum likely would end up with six delegates each under the new proportional system the Iowa GOP is using this year.