(Updates with comment from Romney in third paragraph.)

Jan. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum finished the Iowa caucuses with 34 votes over Mitt Romney, who initially was declared the winner, the Des Moines Register reported today.

Results from eight precincts are missing and might still hold an advantage for Romney, the newspaper said on its website. Those votes may never be recovered and certified, the paper said, quoting state Republican Party officials, who plan to announce certified results later today.

Romney called the result a “virtual tie” in a statement that recognized Santorum’s “strong performance.” Romney said the caucuses were a “great start.”

The state party announced Romney as the winner in the early morning hours of Jan. 4 because he was ahead of Santorum by eight votes in its initial tabulation from the 1,774 precincts where voting was held in the state’s 99 counties.

The closeness of the Iowa results revealed a divided party, still undecided over whether to compromise fiscal and social conservative ideology for a candidate -- Romney -- who polls show is better positioned to attract independent voters needed to beat President Barack Obama in the 2012 general election.

Santorum, 53, a former Pennsylvania senator, surged in the closing days of the Iowa campaign, as social conservatives who give greater weight to the opposition of abortion and gay marriage rallied around him.

Jan. 21 Primary

In South Carolina, where the third nomination contest will be held Jan. 21, Santorum has talked at events about how he might have actually won the caucuses. Such statements have been an attempt to cut into the argument Romney’s campaign has tried to make that his showings in Iowa and New Hampshire signify he has momentum and it’s inevitable that he will secure the nomination.

Before the certification, Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, expressed little concern about the outcome.

“I’m not sure that changes much,” he said Jan. 17, when asked about the possibility that the Iowa results could change.

The totals won’t affect the delegate count for the nomination because Iowa will award its delegates to the national party convention later this year, after a state convention.

The night of the caucuses, Romney attempted to play down the results by stressing the smaller effort he made in Iowa, compared with four years ago when he ran for president.

“When I ran four years ago we had 42 members of our full- time staff,” he said. “This time we had five.”

--Editor: Laurie Asseo, Cesca Antonelli

To contact the reporter on this story: John McCormick in Bluffton, South Carolina at jmccormick16@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jeanne Cummings at jcummings21@bloomberg.net