Iowa fires the first shot of the 2012 battle for the White House on Tuesday with a keenly watched but unpredictable vote on which Republican should challenge President Barack Obama in November. With half of this heartland state's voters still up for grabs, frontrunner Mitt Romney, 64, was locked in a neck-and-neck race with Representative Ron Paul and former senator Rick Santorum in the party's first nominating test.
The Iowa caucuses come against the backdrop of a sour, job-hungry US economy that weighs heavily on the embattled Obama's bid for a second term, four years after he promised his historic 2008 victory would offer "hope and change." "He's out!" Romney, a former Massachusetts governor and millionaire venture capitalist, told cheering supporters at a rally in Des Moines, Iowa's capital, in the final countdown to Tuesday's caucus. "I will get America working again!" Come 7:00 pm (0100 GMT Wednesday), Iowans from the state's 1,774 precincts will head to places like school gymnasiums and cafeterias or church basements to hear speeches from their neighbours on behalf of the seven candidates and then vote.