Obama's staff: Extremist Romney won

The election staff of US President Barack Obama assessed yesterday that an "extremist candidate" won the 2012 election for the presidential candidate of the Republican Party.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has won the Republican primary in Iowa, winning just eight more votes than runner-up former Sen. Rick Santorum, Reuters reported.

"The extremist agenda of the 'Tea Party' party won a clear victory," said Obama campaign director Jim Messina.

Regardless of who the Republican nominee is, Democrats will have to fight, as Messina put it, "someone who bought into those ideas to win, promising to let Wall Street dictate their rules, to come back again on the issue of gay rights, that he will leave forces in Iraq indefinitely and that he will enable billionaires and companies to pay lower taxes," the agencies reported.

As reported, Romney received 30.015, and Santorum 30.007, or 25 percent of the total number of votes each, the Associated Press reported.

Romney is the favorite of the business wing of the party, while Santorum gathers around him a large bloc of Christian conservatives.

Ron Paul, a congressman from Texas with libertarian and anti-war views, came in third, winning 21 percent of the vote.

Obama's fierce fight

Faced with weak economic results and a high unemployment rate, Obama will have to fight hard to keep his place in the White House. However, analysts believe that the narrow results at the Republican caucuses could contribute to an even greater tightening of the debate between the candidates, which would certainly benefit the Democrats, that is, Obama.

Romney is considered to have achieved a good result, since Iowa, with its predominantly conservative population, is not one of the former liberal Massachusetts governor's strongholds.

Although only about one percent of the delegates to the national convention are chosen in Iowa, the election is considered an early indicator of the frontrunners in the presidential race.

The Iowa caucus also serves to push the lowest-ranked candidates out of the race.

Michelle Bachmann ended her campaign, having won only 5 percent of the vote. Bahmanova ignored journalists' questions about which candidate she would support.

"I have decided to withdraw... I will no longer participate in the race for the presidential candidate," she said at the press conference.

After voting in Iowa, Republican voters will choose a candidate in all 26 states until June 50, and the nomination for the presidential election will be finally determined at the Republican National Convention on August 27 in Tampa, Florida.