LEAD: Republican field narrows after tight Iowa vote

Jan 4, 2012, 17:16 GMT

Des Moines, Iowa - The first contest of the US presidential campaign had begun to winnow the field of Republican candidates Wednesday as Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann ended her campaign.

She was the first Republican candidate to exit the party's presidential race as a result of a disappointing finish in Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses.

Texas Governor Rick Perry, who ended in fifth place with 10 per cent, had indicated late Tuesday that he would return home to reassess his campaign.

But Wednesday morning, a tweet on Perry's personal Twitter account appeared to indicate he would stay in the race for a while longer.

'And the next leg of the marathon is the Palmetto State ... Here we come South Carolina!!!' he wrote. South Carolina, which is seen as friendly territory for Perry's more conservative views, holds its primary on January 21.

The neck-and-neck winners in Iowa, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, were already turning to the next contest in New Hampshire on Tuesday.

Former Massachusetts governor Romney had pulled ahead in Iowa in the early hours of Wednesday, ending with 30,015 votes, just eight ahead of former Pennsylvania senator Santorum, out of 122,255 cast, state Republican officials said.

The result was a dead heat at 25 per cent each. In third place was Texas Congressman Ron Paul, at 21.5 per cent.

Bachmann, an Iowa native who had invested most of her resources in the state, earned just 5 per cent of the vote for a sixth place finish in the state and failed to win a single county.

'Last night the people of Iowa spoke with a very clear voice, and so I have decided to stand aside,' she said at a press conference in Iowa, stressing the importance of uniting the party behind the eventual nominee.

Bachmann vowed to continue to fight President Barack Obama and what she called his 'socialist policies,' particularly his health care reform law, which she and other candidates hope to repeal.

Scandals over sexual harassment allegations and an apparent affair had earlier forced out another candidate, businessman Herman Cain, and a poor showing in a summer Iowa popularity contest claimed the candidacy of Tim Pawlenty, a former Minnesota governor.

For the remaining candidates, there was little time to rest following the Iowa caucuses - which ended with the closest race in the history of the contest. The caucuses have kicked off the nominating process for US presidential elections since the 1970s.

The caucuses in the small, central US state launched the opposition Republican Party's process to pick a challenger to Obama. The Iowa contest is known for winnowing the presidential field while giving momentum to top finishers.

With less than a week until the primary in the north-eastern state of New Hampshire, on Tuesday, Santorum was to hold a townhall meeting there, even as Romney was expected to snag a key endorsement from Arizona Senator John McCain, who represented the party in 2008 elections, but lost to Obama.