I thought I'd wait to write today until the Iowa results were in, because I haven't done one of these "snap judgment" sorts of things for a while. As I begin, roughly 85 percent of the votes have been reported.

Mitt Romney seems to have squeaked out a victory over Rick Santorum, at least if the numbers hold (the two are separated by less than 1,000 votes). Ron Paul has posted a strong third place, with the rest of the pack clocking in at under 15 percent.

What it all means is tough to say at this point. New Hampshire is only a week away, and there will be yet another debate held over the weekend before that happens. Towards the end of the month, South Carolina and then Florida will vote.

The likely storyline to emerge in tomorrow's newspapers may well be the "inevitability" of Mitt Romney. These stories may wind up being correct. Romney seems poised to win a decisive victory in New Hampshire, but that has been expected all along, so it will not shake much of anything up. Winning Iowa, however, could be a much bigger deal for Mitt, because even Romney himself didn't believe he could win here until a few weeks ago. Iowa is a heavily conservative and evangelical state, when it comes to the Republican electorate. Rick Santorum's strong showing certainly proves that. But Mitt's victory shows he can win in such a state, which goes a long way in the "electability" category.

South Carolina will be interesting, because it too is seen as a very tough race for Romney. After South Carolina, the field may be narrowed to only one other viable contender for the social conservative "not-Romney" vote. Because of this, it's going to be an absolute cage match for Santorum, Gingrich, Perry, and Bachmann. Only one may make it out alive, to be metaphorically blunt.

Of course, not all four may even make it that far. The pressure is going to become intense for Bachmann and Gingrich to drop out. Perry's got enough money to make it at least as far as Florida, but few other not-Romney candidates can make this claim. Bachmann, especially, may run out of money before she even gets to South Carolina. Florida is a very expensive state to run ads in, which means by the time they vote there will likely be only three or four candidates realistically left in the race.

Jon Huntsman has pinned all his hopes on New Hampshire, but it likely won't be enough. He seems like an intelligent enough guy to realize this, and will likely drop out before South Carolina. Rick Santorum will be the beneficiary of a large wave of money after his strong Iowa showing, and will likely be in the race at least through Florida. Ron Paul seems to be in the race for the long haul, no matter what, so it's unlikely we'll see him drop out at any point -- in fact, he may even decide later to take the third-party route (he's done it before).

Mitt Romney is unquestionably tonight's big winner, though. With the rest of the pack fighting for the one Republican slot to take him on, they have trained all of their attacks on each other. Mitt has been able to stand clear of this fray, for the most part, with virtually no attack ads run against him. This will undoubtedly change now, but with so many still left in the race they're still going to have the same problem of splitting the not-Romney vote. Santorum now seems to have the best chance of sewing this bloc up, and being the second man in a two-man race, but it remains to be seen how well he'll do in South Carolina. Santorum was incredibly lucky with the timing of his bounce in the polling, because it simply happened too late for any of the other candidates to train their fire on him. Like Romney, Santorum was able to stay clear of the fray. Also like Romney, this is about to change for Santorum.

While the news tomorrow will likely be of Romney's inevitability, I wouldn't go quite that far. The real test is going to happen in Florida, I believe. Unlike the other three early states, Florida is much more representative of America at large, and is much less of a one-issue type of state. It has a much larger population, and it's going to be expensive to reach all those people. If Romney wins Florida, then I will entertain thoughts of the inevitability of his nomination, but not before.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant