Republicans race wide open

By Susan Milligan and Charlie Savage, Globe Staff

GRINNELL, Iowa -- Instead of catapulting one candidate toward the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, tonight's Iowa caucuses appear likely to leave the GOP field wide open after a political free-for-all that amounted to not one contest but two.

The top billing was a close fight for first place between former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, whose passionate following by evangelical Christians propelled him to the top of Iowa polls, and the better-funded campaign of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, the one-time front-runner who barraged Huckabee with negative ads in the closing week.

Meanwhile, three other candidates were locked in battle over who would win third-place bragging rights -- and get to ride a wave of positive publicity into Tuesday's New Hampshire primary. In caucus-eve polls, Senator John McCain of Arizona was statistically tied with former Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee and US Representative Ron Paul of Texas.

The unexpected twists of the Iowa contest -- including the abrupt rise of the relatively unknown former governor of Arkansas and a late revival in the polls by McCain, who has also surged back into second place in New Hampshire -- left GOP candidates scrambling to figure out their next moves.

"Without a convincing win in Iowa, the fight is still on'' for the Republican nomination, said Jeffrey Berry, a political science professor at Tufts University.

At a noon rally today in a veterans' hall in Grinnell, Huckabee told a crowd of several hundred supporters that his likely strong showing would be a "seismic event" in the political world because he had been outspent "20 to 1" by Romney.

"We don't have to finish first here in order to feel like we've been successful, but . . . if we are able to win, it is an incredible testament of the revival of the American political system and the fact that when it gets down to it, individual votes still matter and money can't buy elections," Huckabee told reporters afterward.

Despite his popularity in Iowa, Huckabee faces a less-sympathetic audience in New Hampshire, where the GOP electorate is driven more by fiscal conservatism than social issues.

A win in Iowa by Romney, by contrast, would keep alive his strategy of securing the nomination by building momentum in the early primary and caucus states. A comeback victory over Huckabee would give Romney a boost headed to New Hampshire, where he enjoys a regional advantage because he was the governor of its neighbor.

But Romney is also facing a new threat from McCain, whose campaign appeared to be on life support last summer but has pulled within striking distance of besting Romney in New Hampshire.