Former Utah governor and ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, Jr., who skipped campaigning in Iowa to focus on the New Hampshire primary,[1] received 739 votes (0.61%).

The secret polling results at Republican caucus sites were unrelated to the delegate selection process in 2012, although this has been changed for the 2016 election cycle onward.

[7] The 2012 caucuses also set a new record for political expenditures, with $12 million being spent, two-thirds of it from "super PACs" which dominated the campaigns by running highly negative attack ads.

[11] Considered a frontrunner for the 2012 nomination, former Governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee, who was the winner of the Iowa Republican caucuses in 2008, was the leader in every statewide poll conducted in the state in 2010, and early 2011.

[17] Bachmann also strongly played up the fact that she was born in Waterloo, Iowa, where she also officially kicked off her candidacy, before eventually moving to Minnesota with her family when she became a teenager.

[37] Former Governor Mitt Romney, who announced his exploratory committee by posting a video on YouTube on April 11, 2011, failed to make his first appearance in Iowa until May 27, 2011, visiting Ankeny, Des Moines and Cedar Rapids.

[45] Also as a result, the Iowa Republican Party, along with New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada then sought to move their caucuses back into early January.

[47] A representative for Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich was also present, but due to his campaign facing large amounts of debt, did not place a bid, and was not given a spot at the straw poll.

[49] Candidates participating in the debate included Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney, Jon Huntsman and Rick Santorum.

[52] Governor Rick Perry, who announced the day of the straw poll in South Carolina, but whose name did not appear on the ballot,[53] received a significant number of write-in votes, placing in sixth.

[48] Other non-participating candidates, such as Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and former Governor of Utah Jon Huntsman, performed poorly in the straw poll, placing a distant seventh, eighth, and ninth respectively.

[57] The same day, former Governor Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota announced his intentions to withdraw from the race, as a result of placing a distant third in the Ames Straw Poll.

[58] Congressman Thaddeus McCotter also dropped out of the race a month after the straw poll, calling his presidential bid the "worst 15 minutes of [his] life".

[60] This also coincided with the introduction of the 9–9–9 plan by fellow candidate businessman Herman Cain, who then saw a sharp rise in the polls,[61] putting him in a virtual tie with Mitt Romney.

[65][66] On December 3, 2011, in Atlanta, Georgia, Herman Cain officially announced the suspension of his campaign, due to the various allegations of sexual harassment, a 13-year affair, and personal attacks on his family.

[72] Romney mocked Gingrich's plan to build a lunar colony to mine minerals from the Moon, saying that the real difference between the two of them was their backgrounds, saying "I spent my life in the private sector.

Romney fell close behind with 20%, and Gingrich saw a steep drop in support with 14%, largely due to the increase of negative advertisements being bought against him in the state's media market by his opponents.

[91] Shortly prior to the caucus date, an unofficial campaign to urge voters to write in Sarah Palin began running radio and television ads in Iowa.

[103][104] The "Restore Our Future" negative television advertising and direct mail campaign was said to be "unprecedented"[105] and "unlike anything in Iowa caucus history" and was credited with Gingrich's precipitous drop in the polls from front-runner into fourth-place finisher.

[7] The New York Times reported that Romney "effectively outsourced his negative advertising to a group that has raised millions of dollars from his donors to inundate his opponents with attacks - all without breaking the rules that forbid super PACs to explicitly coordinate with the candidates".

His campaign mounted a sunny, Morning in America-style ad blitz, while super PACs founded and directed by longtime Romney loyalists buried the governor's GOP rivals in televised slime.

[124] On January 5 following the caucuses, Des Moines radio station KCCI first reported that caucus-goer Edward True, stated in an affidavit that at his 53-person caucus at the Garrett Memorial Library in Moulton in Appanoose County that he was one of three people who had helped in counting the results and had written the results down on a piece of paper to post to Facebook, but later discovered that the reported count was inaccurate.

[125] Silver also pointed out that one precinct in Appanoose County, Pleasant Franklin, reported no turnout at all, although it was listed as a valid caucus site and 132 voters cast ballots for John McCain in the 2008 general election there.

A Republican Party of Iowa spokesman stated that since True is neither a precinct captain nor county chairperson, he has "no business" talking about election results.

[127] On January 5, the Iowa Republican Party released a written statement in which they refused to respond to reports of the irregularity and stated that did not have "any reason to believe the final, certified results of Appanoose County" would change the outcome.

[129] Republican Party of Iowa executive director Chad Olsen said on January 17 that there have been errors giving both Santorum and Romney more votes than reported on caucus night.

The Des Moines Register stated that the 2012 caucus errors "opens a new line of attack: that Iowa’s process is amateurish, and that its results cannot be trusted.

"[138] An entrance poll was conducted by Edison Research for the Associated Press and the television networks, involving interviews with 1,787 caucus-goers at 40 randomly selected caucus locations throughout Iowa, with a +/- 4% margin of error.

[151] Some commentators noted that the Romney campaign was partly to blame for the delegate outcome, for their failure to mobilize supporters to participate fully in the Iowa nomination process.

[155][156] Following his low fifth-place finish, Perry initially announced he was "reassessing" his campaign "to determine whether there is a path forward," but subsequently stated that he would continue on to New Hampshire and South Carolina.