麻萨诸塞州（Massachusetts）前州长罗姆尼（Mitt Romney）以8票的微弱优势险胜宾西法尼亚州（Pennsylvania）前联邦参议员桑托勒姆（Rick Santorum）。

1月3日，艾奥瓦州（Iowa）各地举行推举共和党总统候选人的预选。根据投票结果，麻萨诸塞州（Massachusetts）前州长，参加竞选共和党总统候选人的米特·罗姆尼（Mitt Romney）以8票的微弱优势险胜宾西法尼亚州（Pennsylvania）前联邦参议员里克·桑托勒姆（Rick Santorum）。图为部分选民在艾奥瓦州伯林顿高中（Burlington High School）的一间教室里投票。

罗姆尼仅以8票之差获胜，打破了1936年堪萨斯州（Kansas）州长阿尔夫·兰登（Alf Landon）在南达科他州（South Dakota）初选期间以257票之差战胜对手的纪录，创造了共和党内角逐总统候选人提名的投票结果最接近的新纪录。兰登后来获得共和党的总统候选人提名，但在总统竞选中最终不敌在职的民主党籍总统富兰克林·罗斯福（Franklin Delano Roosevelt）。

2008年，巴拉克·欧巴马（Barack Obama）在美国总统竞选中赢得了美国总统竞选史上最微弱的一场胜利，当时，他在关岛（Guam）的民主党预选中以7票的优势战胜希拉里·克林顿（Hillary Rodham Clinton）。关岛和其他美国属地一样都参加提名美国总统候选人的程序。

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The margin of victory could not have been much slimmer, as Mitt Romney defeats Rick Santorum in the Iowa caucus by eight votes. Iowa is only the first in a long series of state contests that will determine which Republican candidate faces Democrat Barack Obama in November.

Iowans like these, gathered in a classroom at Burlington High School in Burlington, Iowa, cast ballots in the January 3 Iowa caucus, which resulted in a razor-thin victory for Mitt Romney, a former Massachusetts governor and Republican candidate for the U.S. presidency, over Rick Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania.

Romney’s eight-vote win, the closest margin of victory in a Republication presidential contest, broke the record of 257 votes set in 1936, when Alf Landon won the South Dakota primary. Landon, the governor of Kansas, went on to win the Republican nomination but lost the presidential race to incumbent Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

In 2008, Barack Obama earned the closest-ever margin in a U.S. presidential contest, defeating Hillary Rodham Clinton by seven votes in the Guam caucus. Guam, like other U.S. territories, participates in the presidential nominating process.