The former Massachusetts governor emerged victorious over former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Penn.) by a razor-thin margin of just eight votes. The final results, announced early Wednesday by the Iowa GOP, showed Romney had 30,015 votes to 30,007 for Santorum.

Despite the victory, Romney was unable to garner 25% percent of the vote. With 99.5% of precincts reporting, Romney won 24.6% to Santorum's 24.5%. In all, more than 122,000 straw ballots were cast, a record for Iowa Republicans.

Although the results are non-binding when it comes to picking Iowa's 25 delegates to the GOP convention next summer in Tampa, Romney will take a projected 13 delegates to Santorum's 12, The Associated Press reported.