DES MOINES, Iowa -- Republican Mike Huckabee scored a resounding victory over Mitt Romney, and Barack Obama appeared ready to topple a tightly bunched Democratic field Thursday in the Iowa caucuses, the first test of the 2008 presidential campaign.
Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor once considered a near-fringe candidate, downed a much-better-financed Romney by drawing support from Iowa evangelicals and first-time caucus goers.
Obama, an Illinois senator and political newcomer, rode a promise of change as Democrats surged to Iowa's precinct caucuses in record numbers. His victory over New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards suggested a hunger among Democrats to find a new voice and perhaps a new approach to politics. The fourth-place finisher, Bill Richardson, could gain only 2 percent.
Democrats
Obama's victory over Clinton and Edwards, two far more familiar and practiced politicians, one a former first lady and the other the party's vice presidential candidate four years ago, suggested a hunger among Democrats for a new voice and perhaps a new approach to politics.
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Obama didn't win by a big margin, however, and he probably now will have to duel state by state, most likely with Clinton. She has the money and organizational support across the country to fight on; Edwards does not, and he may well find that anything less than victory in Iowa dries up his limited resources.
With 1,400 of 1,800 precincts reporting, Obama had 36 percent of the projected delegates, John Edwards had 30.57 percent and Hillary Clinton had 30.34 percent.
Democratic Party officials said they expected attendance at the town hall-like meetings to hit 200,000, a dramatic increase from the record 124,000 who attended four years ago and sent Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry on to the Democratic nomination.
Their hunger for change fueled Obama's victory. Polls of Democrats entering the caucuses showed 51 percent were looking for someone who could change politics. Of them, 51 percent went for Obama.
Far fewer cited experience, a blow to Clinton, who has built her campaign on that claim.
Obama ran as the fresh voice of American politics -- with the strikingly different African-American face to match.
He promised a new tone and a more civil approach to getting things done in Washington. And he played a generational card, saying it was time to retire a baby-boom generation that came of age in the 1960s and retains its combative politics.
His message struck a chord with young Iowans, who turned out in droves for his rallies. They also helped send Obama to victory, apparently defying the history that said young people don't show up to caucus here. Polls showed Obama winning 57 percent of the support from people ages 29 and younger.
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republicans
The Associated Press, CNN and Fox News all projected that Huckabee would top Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, who spent huge amounts of money and time aiming for an Iowa victory and, along with it, an aura of inevitability.
With 72 percent of precincts reporting, Huckabee had 34 percent of the vote, well ahead of Romney's 25 percent. Trailing were former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson at 14 percent, Arizona Sen. John McCain at 13 percent and Texas Rep. Ron Paul at 10 percent.
Romney led in polls all year until the past month, when Huckabee caught fire, especially with socially conservative evangelical Christians, who made up an estimated 40 percent of the GOP turnout. Huckabee is an ordained Baptist minister with a televangelist's smooth public presence.
The next test, on Tuesday, is the primary in New Hampshire, a state that Romney has long figured he could win, because he has a vacation home there and was the governor of neighboring Massachusetts until a year ago.
Instead, Romney, 60, now faces not only a momentum-fueled Huckabee, 52, but also Arizona Sen. John McCain, who won a decisive victory in the 2000 New Hampshire primary and, after stumbling badly last summer, is rebounding to regain his lead there in recent polls.
Romney's defeat in Iowa may end up helping McCain more in New Hampshire than it does Huckabee, for Romney appears less electable than he'd planned, while Huckabee lacks a base support group of evangelical Christians in New Hampshire.
Thursday was Huckabee's night, however.
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He said he was outspent by Romney by at least 20-1. He was criticized by rivals for having no foreign policy experience. And he was blasted in dramatic TV ads by the Club for Growth, a Washington anti-tax group, as a serial tax hiker during his 10½ years as Arkansas' governor.
After camping out for months in Iowa's cafes and town halls, the candidates were making a quick exit Thursday night, flying to New Hampshire for four days of campaigning leading up to the state's first-in-the-nation primary on Tuesday.
The fast turnaround reflects the shortest and earliest nominating calendar in history. By Feb. 5, a majority of Americans will have had their shot at shaping the 2008 presidential field.
