The chairman of the Iowa Republican party has said Mitt Romney has won the Iowa caucus by eight votes.

Iowa Republicans prepared to cast the first votes of the 2012 presidential contest tonight, marking their choice for a candidate to challenge President Barack Obama in November.

AMERICAN sports stars are used to cameras whizzing above them to provide close-ups but a college footballer had a close call on Saturday.

MITT ROMNEY has seized the lead in Iowa days before the unpredictable heartland state’s caucus kicks off voting to decide the Republican presidential nominee, a new poll showed.

Republican Mitt Romney is sensing an opening to win next Tuesday’s Iowa caucuses, and he is campaigning with increasing confidence – and a new crush of advertising – to bolster his closing argument: that he is the most electable candidate to challenge US President Barack Obama in November.

Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel launched an ardent defence of President Barack Obama in Iowa, saying that to create middle-class security “we just can’t cut our way to prosperity”.

Mitt Romney and John McCain sparred in the Republicans’ second debate in New Hampshire, where they are in a close race in the US state’s first-in-the-nation primary election tomorrow.

RELIGION played a huge role in Mike Huckabee’s triumph in the Iowa Republican caucuses, although there are some mixed signals for him on the road ahead.

The campaign for the two major US parties’ presidential nominees shifted to New Hampshire today after Iowa’s result threw the races wide open.

Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton face perhaps the biggest test of their political lives next week in New Hampshire, emerging neck-and-neck in the national race today.

Americans voted for change over experience as Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee won the Iowa caucuses.

US presidential hopefuls will make their last bid to woo the people of Iowa today before Americans have their first say on who will head to the White House next year.

Thursday is a critically important date in the 2008 US presidential race, Evan Thomas and Richard Wolffe look at Iowa’s history as a graveyard for front runners and a launching pad for long shots.

Barack Obama has edged ahead of national front-runner Hillary Clinton in Iowa’s Democratic nomination race, a poll showed today.

The Bush administration broadened its response to the earthquake and tsunami disaster in South Asia and Africa with plans for Secretary of State Colin Powell to visit the region and assess what more the United States needs to do.

HOWARD DEAN’S bizarre rant in the face of his Iowa defeat was the talk of America yesterday - with political pros saying it could doom his presidential bid.

DEMOCRATIC presidential candidates opened their sprint to the New Hampshire primary yesterday with newly minted front-runner John Kerry pitching his experience and John Edwards laying claim to electricity in a contest thrown wide open by the leadoff Iowa caucuses.

FOUR Democrats were locked in a tight race last night on the eve of Iowa’s presidential caucuses, with John Kerry clinging to a narrow lead, according to a poll released yesterday (Pic: Howard Dean).