preferences, who they say they're going to vote for. doesn't mean that they'll necessarily vote for that individual that they tell us they'll vote for because at the last minute their minds could be changed based on what they just heard. but we'll have a better sense of what's going on, presumably. all right. we got some information now from the entrance polls. this is from the first wave of the entrance polls, the top tier candidates. the top tier candidates in iowa right now based on this initial survey that we did of people going in, as you can see ron paul, mitt romney and rick santorum. they are the top three. but we want to caution everyone, this could change once we get more results. we're just getting an indication that these are the three that so far, at least in the entrance polls, are doing the best. the second tier, let's take a look at what we call the bottom four right now. we see newt gingrich, the governor rick perry, michele bachmann, jon huntsman.

he's technically there even though he didn't campaign really in iowa. he's spending all of his time in new hampshire. presumably he'll come in last. he won't drop out because he's doing all of his campaigning in new hampshire. but remember, this is very early right now. it's sort of coincides, this top tier w the most recent polls we saw, not only our cnn/time poll, the "des moines register" poll, an nbc/marist poll. these are the three individual, the top tier. no matter how you look at these entrance polls, you can think of it as the most recent poll in iowa. because this is a poll really. and it's a little bit more accurate presumably than the other polls because this is a poll that isn't of likely caucusgoers. we know these are real caucusgoers who participated in this poll, this entrance poll as we call it. the top tier will presumably getting more information in the next wave of these respondents,

john. but significant with our most recent poll "the des moines register" poll as well. >> it will be fascinating to see if it holds up. you just mentioned the 2008 experience, the most committed campaigners tend to show up first. ron paul, can he stay in the top spot. does he sustain that through the night? governor romney and santorum, if he stays in the third spot, this can change, when he did hit the top, the des moines register indicates that he's the candidate surging. he came under attack in the last 48 hours. we just showed ron paul. we know he'll be in the top tier. this is 2008. he won one county, a tiny county down in southwest. so he's spreading the map tonight. let's come forward to 2012. you are going to watch. in just minutes when they start reporting from those caucus sites this map will start filling in. ron paul won just one county last time. what will we look for this time? number one, tea party strength.

the darker the county, the higher percentage of republicans in this part of the state identify with the tea party. let's use blue for the contrast here. a lot of tea party voters, a lot of tea party voters. if ron paul is to be a serious contender, he'll fill in the map in places like this. his son rand paul was there to help him during this campaign. libertarians, young people, tea party voters, that's the test for ron paul tonight. can he expand from the one lonely county he won back in 2008? want to clear this and go back to our 2008 experience. take this off, excuse me, and come back to 2008, this is the test for governor romney. this was his strongest area right here. the campaign is hoping overall turnout higher than the 118,000 that came out last time. the romney campaign is desperate tonight that this not happen, that the middle not fill in for rick santorum like it did for

mike huckabee. they're hoping that bachmann win a few counties, perry wins a few counties. in the middle of the state where the evangelical voters are they hope that bachmann and perry come pine and that governor romney wins. fascinating to watch. this was four years ago. this is now. this is about to start filling in. >> once again, according to this entrance poll, the initial numbers suggesting that at the top tier, as we expected, ron paul, mitt romney and rick santorum. but i want to caution everyone, this is just the initial respondents. it could change as we get more information. four years ago it certainly did. it could change right now. erin burnett and gloria borger are watching this for us. >> we've got 19 categories of what we asked people in the entrance poll. because there are multiple waves some of the first data we have now are the highly motivated

people to first arrive, not those to squeeze in at the end. that can mean very different results as the waves come in. >> exactly. >> when did you decide whom to support? this is a really important category when it comes to who may be the winner tonight or in that top tier. 12% of people decided today according to this first wave of the entrance polls, 25% in the past few days. that's 37% of people just deciding in the past few days. in december, 18% of people decided. and 44% had their minds made up. gloria borger, last time around in 2008 you pointed out that 60% of people made up their minds a long time ago. but in the past few days right before the caucuses in 2008, it was actually slightly lower and still huckabee got a surge. what do you interpret from this? >> first of all, i think this reflects the volatility of the race. if i were in the mitt romney campaign and i would look at the numbers before december and in december, i would say, okay,

that's good. because if these people are turning out early, they probably are part of that solid group that was for mitt romney. so maybe the mitt romney people are looking at that and saying great. on the other hand, if you're with rick santorum and you see that 12% of the people decided today, okay, i'm the last one to surge, this has got to be good for me. >> right. >> then in the last few days that could be good for me, too. so the santorum campaign can look at this and say, you know what? maybe we've got some momentum here. >> anderson, as i pass it back to you, it's worth highlighting back in 2008 when you combine the last two categories, that number was 30%. the momentum candidate was mike huckabee. this time at 37%, even higher. is that potentially even better for the candidate rick santorum? >> the top three candidates among the early birds, among the

people coming early we've been able to poll in our entrance polling, mitt romney, ron paul and rick santorum. really no surprises there. what's interesting to see if the early birds is what are the main issues driving them to the polls, economic issues or social issues. by that we can tell which way they're breaking. >> there is one vissurprise. rick santorum. but iowa is a melting pot of all kinds of issues just like every state is. not one issue that people become an early bird or not. it could be social issues, the tea party. iowa tends towards social issues than economic issues, but certainly all of the above that makes up the stew. >> the economy in iowa and unemployment is lower compared to the national average. social issues have played more of a role certainly for rick santorum. he's publicly said, i'm about more than just the narrow issue of jobs. >> right.

he's focused really on those social issues, which any time you serves two fold, iowa very low unemployment. they can worry about other things including social issues. but it also masks some of santorum's economic record during his time when he was a senator as well. >> that's the charge that ron paul has made against him. ron paul has said that -- i called him a liberal the other day, which i think surprised santorum. >> that was strong. >> but his voting record on spending while in washington. >> right, right. >> james, he's certainly not your kind of liberal. >> but you can't read too much into it. but the thing with santorum, is it looks like gingrich, perry and bachmann are getting a share of the vote. in order for him to do well, they'd have to collapse. to be fair, this is just the first time around. maybe they're more committed to show up early. but he'll have to do that to do well tonight. >> if you are doing well in

polls in south carolina, even if you place fourth or maybe fifth, are you encouraged because you think ron paul doesn't have legs outside of iowa? >> he'll find a way to be encouraged no matter what. in the doldrums when his staff was quitting, he kept going. watching him tonight, this is a man who is not about to quit anything. he's not about to be told this. he's sort of on a mission. i think he can't wait to get to the debate. but he's not -- i don't think he's even thinking he'd run poorly. >> this is one state out of 50. i mean, we spend tons of time talking about iowa, iowa, iowa, iowa, when you have 49 other states. you'll have a significant anti-romney group out there who does not like him. you have heard tea party folks who say, look, we don't like him at all. if you're newt gingrich, you understand if all of a sudden romney has momentum coming out of iowa and new hampshire, you will have people on the right

that say, we don't like that guy. and they're going to want to be able to back somebody. look at south carolina, that could be a place. >> you are saying there's two caucuses, a mini caucus for the lower tier candidates among conservatives who will lead the conservative pack. >> absolutely. because romney is constantly having to deal with the question are you a true conservative. the smart thing for him is to keep running against barack obama and saying i'm the best candidate. >> but you want as many other folks in the race as possible? >> in one sense we say that, but maybe you don't. and this campaign to me struck me as having two phases. the debate phase and mitt romney was sort of okay. he was kind of nice to people. then after the debates is when you saw the 45% of all ads running in iowa were negative ads against newt gingrich. we now know it's pretty evident these worked pretty well. but if gingrich comes out of this thing with a respectable

vote, he'll have viewed himself as survived something big. >> but that's the issue for romney. he needs those guys to stay in the race. he needs them to have enough of a chunk of respectable vote that he can say to myself, i can beat him if i can get to south carolina. if they stay that way, romney has a chance. >> soledad o'brien, where are you now? >> we are here in a place where there's two precincts caucuses. west des moines one and two. 300 people can sit. now many hundred more have come in. they've finally closed the doors. so the line to register is getting much shorter. they're hoping to get started officially in about five or ten minutes. here is what's going to happen. it all starts right up there on that podium. let me walk you through. first, i'll show you where the ballot box is. it is right over here. people have these red ballots. once they fill them out, they'll put them inside this ballot box. then i'll walk you up the

stairs. they'll bring those ballot boxes eventually after the representatives of the candidates speak, they'll bring those ballot boxes up here. they'll lay them out, they'll divide them up and they'll start counting them. they'll count them a second time to confirm the numbers and they'll start writing down the results right up here on the easel. and this will be the first indication for people about which candidates are doing the best and which are at the bottom of the list. after that, they'll do simultaneously a phone call to the republican party of iowa and make their official announcements of what each precinct, west des moines one and west des moines two is supporting for their presidential pick. all of that will then be announced to the crowd. and even though there are lots of people here, it's essentially a very important event that is happening in a very low tech way. after that i'm going to guess you have about a thousand people roughly, maybe a couple hundred more here. after that, all these folks are

expected or many of the folks expected to go and they'll carry on with the party business that they have to do, getting people to volunteer and continuing sort of the delegate count for the next county convention, things like that. but what people are really here for is to see what precincts pick number one, number two and number three for president here in the iowa caucuses. >> soledad, in some of the other locations, they've seen candidates speak to crowds. there have been no speeches thus far where you're at, correct? >> no. they have not had any speeches. in fact, they're not expecting to start those speeches probably for another ten or 15 minutes. they're expecting the speeches -- we've only been told that surrogates or representatives from the campaigns will be talking. there was a word that maybe rick perry would be coming as well. but we haven't actually sighted that yet. they're going to give them 30 minutes total, 5 for each representative to come up and

talk. they haven't started their speeches yet. that will happen after they get the official program under way. >> soledad o'brien, thank you very much. again, it's a unique situation for anyone who hasn't been to a caucus before. it can be difficult to explain, but it's incredibly unique that people spend this amount of time. not like the commitment ta it takes is not just going to vote and checking off something and leaving. it's several hours' commitment. >> the rules -- i was joking about this earlier, they're similar to whack back from the fantastic mr. fox. they're so convoluted. delegates change and restrictions and punishments and so on and so forth. it can be very confusing if someone hasn't been paying attention and following along. >> what do you expect for turnout tonight? 2008 saw turnout on the democratic side and 220,000 people at the caucuses on the republican side 120,000. >> so here's the thing to keep your eye on support especially

in support of ron paul. the independent vote. if a lot of independents just show up -- and they can and they're young. show up and vote in the caucus. it will help ron paul. >> they reregister once you arrive. >> you can show up as an independent register as a republican and cast your ballot. that can lead to a big increase in turnout. if it comes from independent voters vote for ron paul, this is a mixed blessing for republicans because ron paul is a different kind of republican. but that could be the secret to ron paul's success tonight. >> wolf, there has been a lot of discussion about the weather, if there was snow, that might benefit ron paul because his followers might be more dedicated or rick santorum's. it has been a cold day, clear day but no snow. >> did you notice the black-eyed peas were playing, "tonight's going to be a good night." >> i think you're showing your musical knowledge as a fan of once a fan of the monkees. >> anderson cooper remembering

the monkees from buffalo, new york. let's take a look. these are the early respondents. stand by. and look at this. based on the early people who arrived, the early voters, a tie between ron paul and mitt romney. at least according to this early entrance poll result. rick santorum is third with 18%, newt gingrich fourth with 13%. let's take a look at the bottom three as well. remember, these are the early voters, people who showed up early, 11% for rick perry, 7% for michele bachmann, 1% for jon huntsman. the big news now, these are not official numbers. this is not the final number. these are the early arrivals right now. but it's obviously a tie, at least among those who responded early in our entrance poll between ron paul and mitt romney. let's go to dane a bash over at

ron paul headquarters. i don't know if the folks over there see these reports, but if they do, they must be encouraged the ron paul supporters. >> oh, there's no question they're very encouraged. you pointed this out that these are early entrance polls. and the ron paul supporters are known to be very aggressive and very dedicated. so they most likely would have gotten there very early. the ron paul campaign, this is their headquarters. you can see behind me there aren't very many people here. the reason is, of course, they're all out at caucus sites. ron paul is at ancony elementary school right near where i am. he's got his children and grandchildren fand out across the state being his representatives, speaking to these caucuses, trying to get people at the last minute to vote. but there's no question they are very excited inside the ron paul campaign to see these initial entrance polls.

>> as ek sited as the ron paul folks are i'm sure that mitt romney folks are happy as well. these are not the final numbers. these are the entrance poll, the early arrivals, the early voters, but shows a tie right now with ron paul. >> right. and that's ditto what dana just said. supporters from mitt romney are presumably in their caucuses right now. so you're basically looking at a roomful of journalists and people setting up the room for mitt and ann romney to come to. also like ron paul, romney has people fanned out, he has some sons out there, surrogates out there. they feel pretty good about tonight if they see early entrance polls showing they're tied with ron paul, if he cannot win, the next scenario they would take is losing to ron paul because they just don't think he's viable either with the system and the infrfrom the

infrastructure that ron paul has. but a first would really grease those skids as they move into new hampshire where mitt romney is showing a huge lead. >> these are the early voters. this is the entrance poll. these are not official results. i want everyone to be cautious. over to john king. you made an excellent point. the early arrivals four years ago in the republican and democratic caucuses in iowa, they didn't necessarily -- we didn't necessarily get it right in terms of when all of the respondents came in. >> the most eager people show up early and sometimes the most organized campaigns show up late. we'll watch lou this plays out. if you look at this right now a dead heat in the early wave between ron paul and mitt romney, any minute now you'll start to see counties reporting their caucus results. we've got seven candidates. huntsman is not really playing in iowa. six in contention in iowa.

we pretty much know this already. ron paul is going to build. he had one lonely county, a tiny county one year ago. where do you watch for ron paul? ames. college campuses here in the state, tea party and avan gellical voters. let's see if he can stretch that. you just showed romney tied with ron paul. this could become part of the conversation tonight. these are early preliminary numbers. we don't know if romney will go higher or lower, but look what romney got in iowa. if he matches that number, look, winning beats losing, but if he matches this number, there will be the conversation that we've had throughout the primaries, can he grow, can he expand his coalition? can he do more? if romney wins, they think out here, they think tonight the electorate is slightly older, slightly more independent, slight he fewer evangelicals by

percentage. but if that's the case, if the romney campaign is right about that, they believe they can put the race together here in the west des moines suburbs and get to 26, 27% and win the race. a win would be a win. we have to watch ron paul early in the results. the big question is what's the expectations games? and will some in the party -- and i'm interested what our strategists think about this. will some in the party say if that's the number and he wins, does he say, great, i won the iowa caucuses or do some say why can't the guy who is favored with new hampshire who would look with an iowa win to be the prohibitive republican nominee, why can't he grow? why can't he get more republicans to say he's our guy? >> we'll continue to search for that answer. we'll go inside the caucuses. we have cameras in a lot of these caucuses. we'll give you a flavor of what's going on. but right now in the first wave of these iowa entrance poll

results looks like it's very, very close. in fact, a tie between mitt romney and ron paul. rick santorum coming in third. at least in these entrance poll results. our coverage continues right after this. [ male announcer ] what if we told you that cadillac borrowed technology from ferrari to develop its suspension system? or what if we told you that ferrari borrowed technology from cadillac to develop its suspension system? magnetic ride control -- pioneered by cadillac, perfected in the 556-horsepower cts-v. we don't just make luxury cars. we make cadillacs.

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i guess a recap. the early voters who arrived early in our entrance poll results showing a tie between ron paul and mitt romney. rick santorum third. but remember, this is early. things could change. these are not the official results. i want to go to travis. you got a crowd of about 6,000 at the university of northern iowa, shannon, where you are. set the scene for us. tell us what's going on right now. >> absolutely, wolf. it's an arena full of people here in northern iowa. we're inside one of the caucus gatherings as they're moments away from the moment that we all want to know about actually voting. i'm sitting here about one of the voters who is here. she lives in union township. this area and these bleachers over here specifically are for

that township. you were telling me that only days ago you decided who would you support. >> correct. i decided three days ago. >> who is that? >> rick santorum. >> why is that? >> primarily the economy. i'm worried about the economy. >> do you think you might have to convince some of your other fellow neighbors and friends here also. >> this group seems a little stubborn. we've all come knowing who we want to support. >> a tighty right there. we'll see though he's caulk oesgoers in these bleachers here. >> ron paul speaking in ankeny. >> i recognize the challenge. but i tell you where i get my reassurance on my foreign policy. not only do i know it's constitutional, how can we fight for our constitution if we avoid using the constitution? where i get my reassurance are from the active military people. if you look at the donations that come from active military

people, i get twice as much as all tl other candidates put together. that sends a powerful message. they know being over there, fighting these wars, not winning the wars and dragging them out ten years in afghanistan, $4 trillion of debt have accumulated over these past years. and think of the tragic circumstances of the families disrupted, the lives that we have lost and the people coming back injured and post-traumatic stress syndrome and we're having an epidemic of suicide. if we care about our military, we'd be much more cautious about how we go to war. we want a conservative constitutional government which means the government is small, the people are large, the people assume responsibility for themselves and, believe me, the world and us, we would be better off. that is the road to peace and prosperity. i thank you very much for inviting me. >> ron paul speaking to

caucusgoers in iowa. he's trying to convince them to maybe change their minds and support him. they're going to start actually voting there very soon. soledad o'brien is joining us from clive, iowa. it looks like a pretty big event over there, soledad. they're just sitting down. did they just do the pledge of allegiance? >> they just did the pledge of allegiance. very big event. they were estimating 1200 people would be here. i think that estimate is accurate. they just literally officially have gotten under way. christy taylor at the mike right now. she's the person that runs the caucuses. two things happening. one, not only are they officially under way, but there's a rumor that governor rick perry will be here soon to address the crowd. we haven't seen his people officially here to bring him in, but we are told that he will be coming not only from some of the people who are helping run this caucus, but some of the folks in the crowd have told us as well. they're very excited, those who support him. even those who are on the fence are excited to hear from him.

we're expecting in ten minutes that the candidates' surrogates, the representatives will start giving speeches, then after that, the voting begins here in clive for two precincts, west des moines one and west des moines two. >> we'll get back to you. let us know if governor perry shows up. >> let's go to ali velshi. he's monitoring social media sites, twitter, to get a reading of where people are at online. >> these dots correspond to the colors that we've assigned to each of the candidates. look at the peach color for ron paul. all over the country, for the last three days while i've been having this board going, ron paul has been in the number one spot in terms of volumes of tweets. in the last hour ron paul, 4,700 people across the country or anywhere have tweeted with ron paul's name or handle in it. he's been in the top spot for a while. take a look at number two. number two is mitt romney and number three is rick santorum at

1743. these three have been in the top three spot. but we're ranking sentiment here, anderson. a combination of the volume of tweets that are mentioning these candidates and what people are saying about them, good, bad or indifferent. ron paul has been in the number one spot all day. sentiment is moving toward him on twitter. mitt romney has been moving all over the board. he's not been in second place, sixth place at once with only huntsman behind him. number three is rick perry, number four is michele bachmann, number five is rick santorum. this is not iowa. this is everybody in the twitterverse. but ron paul winning not only in the top tier of our entrance polls but also in the social media world. >> ron paul has had a very strong online presence for this entire campaign. >> that's right. >> a lot of young followers are very active on twitter. >> that's right. >> and facebook and the like. our coverage continues. we'll take a short break of the caucuses getting under way now

across iowa. more than 1700 precincts, 1774 voting under way in a number of places. we'll bring you all the results. there is a platform built for the purpose of driving innovation. one that's transforming how companies from every industry-- and of every size-- are doing business. a platform built for now. and for what's next. this...is the cisco intelligent network. cisco. [♪...] >> announcer: with nothing but his computer, an identity thief is able to use your information to open a bank account... in order to make your money his money. [whoosh, clang] you need lifelock-- the only identity protection company that now monitors bank accounts for takeover fraud.

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the first votes of the 2012 presidential season have now occurred. in fact, they're occurring over at indianola high school. they just put them in this plastic box over there. that's where the votes are. people circle the names of the candidate they want to see as the republican presidential nominee. they brought at this lunch room from the indianaola high school, they brought the box to a table. they're going to actually count these ballots. peter hamby is there for us. they're doing it the old fashioned way. >> they really are. they passed around sort of a big plastic bin. everyone dumped their secret ballot in. this is an interesting place, indianaola is a pretty conservati conservative precinct. they were expecting a better turnout. it was really interesting that we saw no one stood up and spoke for either newt gingrich or rick

perry. organization is key in the caulk outs. you want to have as many of your supporters speaking up trying to change minds at the last minute. rick perry was supposed to have this vaunted ground game. obviously, you can't cover every single precinct. but it was shocking when the precinct chairman asked was there anyone there to speak for rick perry. nobody did. even jon huntsman, who is not competing in iowa, had a volunteer here and sold huntsman on his foreign policy credentials. >> i want to go to the cedar rapids caucus because they're actually counting the votes there. maybe we can hear what they're saying. >> are you checking with somebody else? >> i don't hear anything.

>> cedar rapids, iowa, caucus. they're expecting about 200 or 300 people there at the bethany lutheran church. john, this is democracy in action. i love the fact that they're doing it the old fashioned way. >> the old-fashioned way. wolf, cnn has more cameras in these caucuses than any other news organization. they count the vote, you see the action going on in indianaola, they're counting right now. we'll watch it fill in. we'll get the counts as they come in. that's indianaola, you got the local republicans doing their work. democracy in action is right. let's beam out. we have four right here in cedar falls and in clive, you can see the officials are just starting to is speak. they're just starting to get

under way. in ankeny, you see as they're speaking, you see the paperwork in the corner here. this is a unique process. we can take you right inside. once they start to tabulate them, we've got reporters on the scene. we can watch from the caucus sites. then be we pull out, come back to the map and we'll watch the state of iowa. remember, that was completely blank a little while ago. slowly starting to tune in. you see one or two of these precincts, that 1% of the vote being reported so far. history tells us the republicans count pretty quickly. once this process gets under way. >> they make a phone call to des moines to republican party headquarter, they say what the results are and they add it up and we'll get a better sense of what's going on, john. stand by. i want to go back to erin and gloria over there. are you getting a sense of what's going on from the entrance poll questionnaires we gave people as they were walking in, erin? >> yes, we are, wolf.

as you've been talking about, the second wave, you've been talking about the leaders there with rick santorum, ron paul and mitt romney, this is based on 700 to 900 people what they had to say when they came in. born-again evangelical or christian? 58% of the people in wave two that we surveyed in our entrance poll identified themselves as born-again or evangelical, 42% as no. last year 60% identified themselves as evangelicals. the reason this is so important is because in 2008 of the evangelical vote 46% went for mike huckabee. let's look at the people who identify themselves as evangelicals. wolf, this is the big moment, wolf, the flick. there it goes. this is our flick. we can blow this up as big as we want. sort of like ipad technology. born-again evn gellical christian, yes. gloria, what does this say to you about them going for ron

paul? >> well, there are a lot of interesting things here. first of all, what this says is ron paul is, of course, ardently pro life candidate. but it also says to me that evangelical voters are not single issue voters. ron paul has a very strong conservative economic message. and that may very well appeal to evangelical christians as well. the one i'm interested in here is rick santorum. >> right. >> he gets 21%. and that evangelical vote you pointed out mike huckabee last time got 46% of it. it is now split. >> right. >> among the whole bunch of candidates here. michele bachmann, gingrich, perry, romney, santorum polled. they're all splitting it. this is good for mitt romney. >> i want to emphasize as we all talk about, john mentioned can mitt romney get above that crucial 25% threshold overall. right now 16% of the evangelical

vote. in 2008 he got 19% of that vote. now with the magic of technology, less's look at the people who identifies themts as not born-again or evangelical. and this is what's important here. not just going for mitt romney, but he's got a big 34%. >> i guess that is no surprise because those who are not identified as evangelicals -- >> matches his total last time around. >> he is a mormon, after all. but again look at ron paul here. this is the economic message, i think, of ron paul getting through. it spreads across whether you're evangelical or you're not evangelical. he does very well. >> all right. i'm going to talk about that later tonight. because a lot of people think ron paul does he have staying power. is he too radical economically? i spent the day talking to major investors and ceos on what they had to say about ron paul. talk about that later.

>> let's check in with erick erickson editor of redstate.com. have you bore ode one of rick santorum's sweater vests? is that what you're wearing here? >> i've sewn some sleeves on it. it's cold here. >> what is the mood there tonight? >> you remember those movies where the american space capsule goes around the moon for the first time and we lose contact with it? that's the mood here. anxiety. everybody is waiting for the polls to close, for people to come back and give a little bit of information. media consultant ray braybender is tweaking the lights there. they just did a dry run with the campaign's theme song, heroic theme song to elevate the candidates. everybody is needles and pins waiting for the shoes to drop here. >> people have watched the so-called rick santorum surge in this des moines register poll which took place over four days. in the last two days of that poll. in the first two days he was

around 15% or so or even below that. in the last couple of days he was in the 21 or 22%, finished 15% overall. how confident are they and to what do they attribute that surge? a lot of folks have been saying he was just the last guy standing when everybody else has been the front-runner, then fallen. >> yeah, you know, everyone's trying to damp down expectations a little bit just reminding everyone this is new. you get the sense from the facility where we're in. it's much smaller than you would think if we were going to have a massive the fire marshal might have issues with the size of the crowd. there's going to be excited people here looking at the returns you've been talking about. >> anderson, one way to look at the numbers here, last election f you add up the evangelical vote that huckabee and thompson got, that's about 56,000 votes. assume that a little less than half of that will be split up this time by, say, rick perry, michele bachmann and even newt

gingrich, a little bit, that leaves 30,000 votes out there for somebody like rick santorum, who seems to have gotten some momentum. that might be a ceiling for him. he'd be thrilled to come close. >> we'll check in with you guys throughout the evening. john king is other here at the magic wall. >> we're look at our live caucus cams. i want to take you to indianaola. this is the first caucus where i see the vote counts start to come in. i'm pretty sure we can listen in. >> the central committee meets once a month. it's the third monday of the month. >> it's not that exciting. >> well, they've done the counting, now they're doing the organizing. >> you can get the doughnuts and the -- >> be careful now. this is actually important work. we might look and say what do we care about the central committee, in indianaola. iowa is a classic swing state. seven times for the republicans, six times for the democrat. what republicans are hoping is that it doesn't end tonight. they have a good competitive

campaign in november. but we're trying to figure out who is our first winner. >> they've already voted in indianaola. now they're doing party business. >> maybe they're tweeting. maybe ali will get these tweets. >> are these the final numbers from indianaola. >> i assume they're final numbers. peter hamby is on the ground. this is fascinating to get right inside the room. this looks like a school cafeteria here. at this one site, you see it highlighted here. we make it easy for you. ron paul is winning, but then you have a split throughout the rest. we'll watch these all night long. >> we've got all of the respondents now to the entrance poll results have reported. we've tabulated the results. let's see what happened. now, there are two waves. the early waves we told you about the tie, the tie between ron paul and mitt romney, both with 24%, 18% for rick santorum,

13% for newt gingrich. now we've got all the early arrivals and the late arrivals. they have now been tabulated, counted, these are the poll results. not the official results. but this is what people said they were going to do as they were walking in though theo the caucuses. let's look at both waves. all voters, look at this, ron paul, 24%, mitt romney, 23%. very close behind rick santorum, 19%, newt gingrich, 13%. this is the entrance poll. let's see the bottom three right now as well. in addition to these other top four. rick perry with 11%, michele bachmann 7%, jon huntsman only 1%. he really didn't campaign in iowa. but ron paul, at least according to the entrance poll results, this is not official numbers, this is only what people were saying as they were going in, remember, one of the important features of these caucuses, one

of the real important features is people can change their minds even as they're listening to representatives of the various candidates, they can change their minds. and they don't necessarily have to vote the way they said to our people making these surveys what they were going to do. but right now, it looks like ron paul, 24% to mitt romney's 23%. these are the entrance poll results. all of the respondents now have been counted. but let's take a look at the real votes. these are official votes we're starting to get in. only 3% of the precincts are in. right now 31% of the precincts reporting ron paul. 16 rick perry and 10. remember, this is very, very early. these are official numbers, only 1% reporting. you can see how small these numbers are. rick santorum 463 votes, ahead

of ron paul. mitt romney 318. newt gingrich 286 the official votes in the 2012 election season, first official votes that have been counted, rick perry, 10%, 169 michele bachmann 112. 5 people have voted for jon hunts hahn. i want to go inside of our cue. all of our experts are monitoring what's going on. anderson cooper will give us a better sense of how we determine these results, the official results as well as the entrance poll results. anderson? >> we've been getting a lot of the numbers in here where we have folks who are crunching the numbers. what are you looking at here? >> this is what the entrance poll data is. at 40 precincts we had interviewers out there that were asking the questions who are you, who are you going to vote for, what have you. this gives us an indication of where things are going, but this

isn't the data. we slide over here, this is where we see the raw data come in, the raw vote. these viewers are asking questions initially then when the room happens and we see the vote even before it is officially coming in, it is being telephoned back to our folks who are crunching the data. we have a team of half a dozen people led by our director, statisticians, political professionals, journalists putting this stuff together creating an overlay. that's where we'll get a statistical model to then decide who will be the next winner of the iowa caucus. >> to give a projection. >> we will. but right now, think about a baseball game, we're probably in about the fourth inning. that's why it's so important that we're watching this data right here, but this is real data. wasn't to push that data out and get into the real votes. it is just starting to come in. >> so when projections come in, it is based solely on real voting or only on entrance? >> it is based on the entrance

data, the real votes also based upon an editorial decision that you make at the time. and these folks that are doing it for us, they've been doing this for a long time. they know the state. they know where the votes are. >> it will be interesting to see in the post game of all this to see the entrance data, what people said as it gibed with how they voted to see if a lot of minds were changed and see how many were undecided when they went in. >> whether that was good data or bad data as well. you are able to look at it in the end. when we look at this entrance poll data, we'll find out where piste these folks are, are they born-again evangelicals, and he can show you specifically on the map. >> i assume it's okay to show the thing that says confidential information? >> isn't that your telephone number? >> we decided that's no longer confidential for some reason. >> for our use, it's all right. >> we'll be checking in now with

the evening in the cube where all the numbers are being crunched. >> thanks very much, anderson. mark preston, thanks as well. shannon travis is in northern iowa there's a pretty large caucus going on. >> hey there, wolf. we're continuing to peel back the curtain on this whole caucus process, literally and figuratively. one caucus that has not finished it voting but over here empty chairs. this group has finished it voting. this is the precinct captain agnes. you've finished with your caucus gathering. what are the numbers look beening like? >> ron paul was clearly the leader, then newt gingrich close behind him with four. >> how many people? >> 22 in our precinct. >> what happens now with those numbers? >> i'll turn them into the central committee and they send that on to the state level. >> and that gets tabulated? >> correct. >> this is where agnes is taking the numbers over to get tabulated. a nerve center for this arena of

6,000 people. some of the groups are still here but some of the groups have left and the voting is over. >> shannon travis has been living in iowa over the past several months watching what's going on. let's go to ankeny iowa. there's a caucus going on. joe johns is over there. >> probably about 300 people, perhaps more here just finished voting. what you're looking at right now is the votes being tabulated. on each piece of paper is the name of one of the candidates now run are for president. with me right now, as a matter of fact, is matt strong who is the iowa state republican chairman. he happens to be, you know, this is where you would caucus. you did not vote, right? >> this is my home turf, my home precinct. but because we oversee the election my office tabulates the results, i didn't cast a vote tonight. i get to see the very best of the grassroots process in action. campaign representatives actually watching the votes being counted.

>> that's important to say. the different people we have in here are different representatives of candidates who actually spoke. so you, sir, you spoke for newt gingrich. >> i did, yes, sir. >> what is your name? >> chris walker. >> what is your name? >> rob johnson. i spoke for rick perry. >> gloria sissen, mitt romney. >> and you spoke for ron paul. >> i did. nathan o'connor. >> well, thank you very much to you all. so that's what it looks like. if we can go back over here, the counting is progressing fairly quickly, wolf. we're going through just a small group of names. we're also trying to, you know, keep tab on who is who and we can come back to you probably momentarily with the results. it looks like they're almost through with those pieces of paper. so it's been very, very fast moving process, if you will here tonight. i'm also afraid to interrupt

here because i don't want to get their counts. how quickly does this happen? i mean, it looks like they're going to be done in five minutes. >> we don't mess around here in the hawkeye state. so we've got the whole world waiting to see the results from ankeny ten. but this process is happening in 770 other precincts simultaneously. the best of the grassroots process. >> what's interesting to me was last time around we had, what, a social conservative at the very top. and the guy who won the nomination ended up actually getting second here. >> correct. in this precinct four years ago mike huckabee won the precinct folded by john mccain. >> thanks so much. it looks like they just opened another envelope. we'll be another minute or two before we get the tabulations. but we'll get to you when they finish counting. >> we're watching history unfold. these are the first official votes of the 2012 presidential season here in the united

states. whe wheel get back to you, joe, joe is in ankeny. we have other caucus watchers. we have the results of the entrance polls. ron paul slightly, slightly ahead of mitt romney. 24%, 23%. that's not the official results. they're counting votes right now. we'll get the official results. this new at&t 4g lte is fast.

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we're getting word from poll results. this is still very early in the official count. you saw what's going on with the entrance poll results. slight lead in the entrance poll results for ron paul over mitt romney. but 4% of the vote now in. these are official numbers. 24% for rick santorum. also 24% for ron paul. rick santorum is 25 sloats ahead of ron paul. 1229 to 1204. mitt romney has got 22% with about 1100. newt gingrich 14%. 690, rick perry only 9%, 460,

michele bachmann, 6%, 323, jon huntsman has 26 votes, 1%. you see what's going on. this is 4%. joe johns is in ankeny watching what's going on. i take it the counting has actually started. what's going on there? >> they have. so far we've counted out 57 votes for rick santorum. now they're doing the mitt romney votes. we're at 55 and still counting. there's still a lot more in her hand. so i don't know how many she's going to end up with. the counting continues, wolf. >> 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72. >> 72 votes for mitt romney here. we really got a lot of applause in the room for ron paul. so it will be interesting to see whether the amount of applause

translates in to a lot of votes, but clear there was a lot of support in the room for ron paul. >> 7, 8 -- >> joe, stand by. we'll get back to you. and get a better sense -- joe is in ankeny, iowa. rick perry is speaking in clive outside of des moines, the texas governor. let's see what he's saying. >> they came because they knew there was a land of opportunity still in this country. and there's a model for america in this country. and we have put that model in place. if we really want to make a difference in this country, if we want to leave this country for our children in good shape, there's two things that we can do together. and it's going to take us all working together. this election is not about me. it's about you. it's about our children. it's about our grandchildren. and it's about having a president of the united states