DES MOINES, Iowa — A historically close finish in the Iowa caucuses ended the campaign of Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann on Wednesday and raised questions about how long Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who finished fifth in the six-way race, can continue to hang on.
Bachmann bowed out of the race early Wednesday after finishing a distant sixth in the caucuses with 5 percent, or 6,073 votes, according to final tallies reported Wednesday.
“Last night the people of Iowa spoke with a very clear voice and so I have decided to stand aside,” Bachmann said from her campaign headquarters in Urbandale. “I have no regrets — none whatsoever. We can leave this race knowing that we ran it with the utmost integrity.”
In suspending her campaign, Bachmann called on the party to unite behind a conservative standard bearer and insisted that she would remain a “strong voice” in the presidential campaign.
Coming just four months after she claimed victory in the Iowa straw poll, Bachmann’s concession illustrates just how volatile this race has been, with a different front-runner every few weeks and only eight votes separating the caucus winner, Mitt Romney, from the second-place finisher, former Sen. Rick Santorum.
Perry also considered pulling the plug on his campaign after finishing fifth with 10 percent of the vote. He told supporters Tuesday night that he would return to Texas to “reassess” his bid. But early Wednesday Perry reversed course and announced to supporters on Twitter, “And the next leg of the marathon is the Palmetto State … Here we come South Carolina!!!”
Perry plans to skip the Jan. 10 New Hampshire primary and go straight to South Carolina, a conservative state with a large number of veterans with whom Perry is expected to be popular.
While the caucuses threw Bachmann’s and Perry’s campaign into peril, they effectively transformed an underdog, Santorum, into a front-runner for the first time.
Santorum, whose polling has been stuck in low single digits, surged just before Iowans went to the poll and nearly beat Romney, who was hoping a decisive win in Iowa would make claiming the nomination much easier for him.
“I offer public thanks to God,” Santorum told supporters after the voting. “We are off to New Hampshire!”
The dramatic, historically close finish between Santorum and Romney reflects a division among Republican voters over whether it’s more important to have a nominee who reflects their values or one who doesn’t necessarily agree with them on key issues but can beat President Obama, political analysts said.
Nearly half of all Romney’s supporters said they voted for him because he can beat Obama. Santorum’s supporters cited his strong moral character and “true” conservatism, according to polls.
Meanwhile, voters who called themselves “very conservative” chose Santorum over Romney by a 21-point margin. Romney won 35 percent of voters who call themselves “moderate or liberal,” while Santorum won just 8 percent of those voters.
With the Iowa caucuses at their backs, the candidates are now preparing for two debates this weekend and the New Hampshire primary on Jan. 10.
