characterizing the race as too close to call but we may not call the race at this point, assuming everything is what it seems to be and how the vote count is being reported in, that we will never be able to call the race before every vote is counted. that s how close it is between first and third. we are seeing in the raw vote, we do know there was a little bit of a slowdown in the vote count by the state party. remember, the state party doing these vote counts it is important to note, nbc news may not ever be able to project this race based on molding, we will actually is to do it the old-fashioned way, wait for every vote to be counted. i know a lot of people have questions about the raw turnout. right now, and again, this is based on some numbers, but looks like it is about on par with four years ago. four years ago, about 120,000 republicans came. anywhere plus or minus 5 to 10,000 on each side. i know that seems like a wide width, but the fact is it would make it either
now. chuck? well, as you know, our boiler room down at 30 rock does a lot of different modeling and based only on precinct modeling. if you just get rid of the entrance polls. on the data that has come in, 0.3 of 1%. okay? separates first and third. and based on different models depending on what happens, any of the three appears it can win. we can also report that the entrance poll did overstate ron paul not by some significant of a margin and that is why you ve seen some reporting people following on twitter feeds about where paul was and this or that. as we re seeing the actual data come in it s showing that romney and santorum were under represented in the entrance poll and paul was over represented. now remember, it is an entrance poll. and because it s an entrance poll it is possible people went in thinking they would vote one way and got talked into it. the other thing to keep in mind is the most organized campaign gets people there early and in this case the paul ca
characterizing the race as too close to call but we may not call the race at this point, assuming everything is what it seems to be and how the vote count is being reported in, that we will never be able to call the race before every vote is counted. that s how close it is between first and third. we are seeing in the raw vote, we do know there was a little bit of a slowdown in the vote count by the state party. remember, the state party doing these vote counts it is important to note, nbc news may not ever be able to project this race based on molding, we will actually is to do it the old-fashioned way, wait for every vote to be counted. i know a lot of people have questions about the raw turnout. right now, and again, this is based on some numbers, but looks like it is about on par with four years ago. four years ago, about 120,000 republicans came. anywhere plus or minus 5 to 10,000 on each side. i know that seems like a wide width, but the fact is it would make it either
mitt romney, and he said why doesn t mitt romney clear the air of the campaigning by calling on all unaffiliated super committees to stop all negative ads and ben ginsberg answered with something his own candidate hasn t been saying. ginsberg said a candidate can t tell an unaffiliated pac. let s hear what he said on fox & friends. there s coordination rules and you re not allowed to coordinate. i am sure i can go out and say please don t do anything negative. well, i have to go back to lawrence and pass it back to him, rachel, because he started this little kerfuffle. turns out ben ginsberg has not checked with his candidate. his candidate believes he has the right to stop this by simply calling up his own political action committee associated with him and say stop doing this. ben says he couldn t do that legally. i think we just heard the candidate say he could. he did do that, chris, and he could make it more general if necessary to satisfy attorney ginsberg s tech
captions paid for by nbc-universal television good morning, everyone. welcome to today on a wednesday morning. i m matt lauer. and i m ann curry. oh, what a night and oh, what a story. these results mark the closest in the history of the iowa caucus and as a measure of interest, participants turned out in record numbers. so tight the results weren t announced until the early morning hours. mitt romney s 30,015 to 30,007, that s just eight votes. it s been a remarkable surge for rick santorum, considering he was posing in single digits a few weeks ago. ron paul finished in third. 21%, newt gingrich, rick perry and michele bachmann founding out the field. let us begin with savannah guthrie. good morning. reporter: good morning to you, ann. the first votes cast at this 2012 race, iowa voters provided a photo finish reflecting a divided republican electriorele. romney and rick santorum at one point were within four votes of each ear. an afterthought as one week ago