Iowa front-runners making final push to win late-breaking caucus voters

DES MOINES, Iowa – The Iowa caucus front-runners are criss-crossing the state Monday looking to convince late-breaking voters they should be the nominee ahead of Tuesday’s caucuses, but they all seem to be running at a different pace. Rick Santorum is at an all-out sprint while Mitt Romney seems to be treating Iowa as a warm-up jog, and Ron Paul returns Monday after a water break of sorts down in Texas.

Santorum has been urging his campaign on, pushing for as much face time as possible with the voters and sticking around for long Q&A periods at every campaign stop to keep his surge in the polls moving forward. He has five events planned for the day on top of two national radio hits and an evening interview on Fox News. This follows a hectic swing Sunday afternoon and evening through northwest Iowa.

The former Pennsylvania senator has spent by far the most time in Iowa of any candidate – roughly 100 days in the last year – and his dogged retail politics are paying dividends. He had 18 percent support, just one point behind Romney and two points behind Paul, in a tracking poll released by the Democratic-affiliated Public Policy Polling late Sunday night.

{mosads}Santorum was all too happy to take swipes at some of his other opponents on Sunday, mocking Rick Perry’s poor debate performances and warning that “”If President Obama has four years where he is not looking to reelection, his foreign policy will not be any different to Ron Paul’s foreign policy,” a swipe at rival Paul’s non-interventionist views.

He has said he sees his main competition for votes coming from Perry and Michele Bachmann, and in counter-attacking Perry after the Texas governor questioned why Santorum pushed for earmarks he seems to be making a play for those soft supporters of the governor.

Santorum’s supporters are excited, and feel their man has a strong chance of winning the state. “You are seeing a new candidate, a new Rick Santorum, who is so energized,” Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz told The Hill Sunday evening. “I think a win or a close-second place finish will just continue that momentum.”

Romney, who remains the front-runner both nationally and in many recent polls of the state, has kept up a slightly more relaxed pace and largely avoided attacking his GOP rivals, instead giving a stump speech focused on President Obama and signaling that while he wants to win Iowa, he’s not worried about losing to Paul or Santorum. He seemed relaxed during his speeches and gave no signs that he was concerned about Tuesday’s outcome.

He made two stops in southwest Iowa on Sunday and will hit four Iowa towns Monday, working his way from the northeast corner back towards Des Moines.

The former Massachusetts governor has mostly focused on the areas of the state he did best in during his 2008 loss. The calculus is different this time and Romney may be able to win the caucuses with a quarter of the total vote, the same share that earned him a disappointing second place four years ago.

Romney’s advisors have long downplayed their efforts in Iowa, and while he has worked the state hard in the last month they have continued to emphasize he doesn’t need to win the state to remain the front-runner.

Stuart Stevens, a top Romney adviser, told The Hill on Saturday in Sioux City that as long as Romney finishes near the top of the field he’ll remain in a strong position.

“I think we’ll do well [in Iowa]. I always had trouble with the idea that we would win. We could but I doubt we will,” he said. “Four years ago we spent $2 million on the straw poll, $10 million on television, had 30 paid staffers. This year we didn’t do the straw poll, we have five paid staffers and we went on television maybe three weeks ago, a month ago. And we got 30,000 votes. Will we get more votes? I hope so, but I just bump up against [those numbers].”

As long as Romney finishes near the top of the polls on Tuesday, he will likely remain the heavy favorite for the nomination: The next state to vote is New Hampshire, where he owns a home, has built as his firewall and leads in recent polls by wide margins.

Romney also has by far the most money and organization of any candidate besides Paul, whose foreign policy views alarm many Republicans, and he announced Sunday that his campaign did “better this quarter than any other quarter so far” in fundraising. It will be a tall task for any other candidate to catch him going forward unless he experiences a major setback at the polls in an early-voting state.

Paul spent New Year’s weekend back in Texas, losing out on two crucial days while the other candidates sought to close the deal in the state. His poll support has seemingly eroded a bit in the last week and he is no longer the clear front-runner as those outside his natural libertarian base of support may be taking another look at his foreign policy record. He and his son, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), have five stops planned in the state on Monday.

Paul said on ABC’s This Week Sunday morning that he’s “pretty electable” and soon afterwards on CNN predicted a top-two finish in the state.

The three front-runners will all likely be able to move on to the next state. But if Romney wins Iowa he will be very hard to beat moving forward, while if Santorum wins that could give him the needed fundraising boost to try to quickly build on his campaign’s infrastructure in the next voting states.

— Niall Stanage contributed to this story.