The victory put the under-funded former long shot in a much-improved position to win the GOP presidential nomination and served up one of two possibly fatal blows to Romney’s campaign.

Huckabee was slated to take more than one-third of the votes with Romney trailing by about 10 points with 25 percent of the vote.

Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) and former Sen. Fred Thompson (Tenn.) appeared to be battling for a third-place finish. Both hovered around 13 or 14 percent. Rep. Ron Paul (Texas) was fifth at 10 percent, while former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani was sixth with 4 percent.

Huckabee likened the win to a “prairie fire of new hope and zeal” and said it is merely the beginning for his campaign.

“Tonight what we have seen is a new day in American politics,” he said at his victory party here. “A new day is needed in American politics, just like a new day is needed in American government.”

Top Huckabee consultant Ed Rollins portrayed the victory as overcoming big-time Washington strategists and numerous attacks.

“This is the beginning of a great, great march to the presidency,” Rollins said at Huckabee’s victory party here.

Rollins coupled Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) win in the Democratic caucus with Huckabee’s and suggested they were two signals of the same movement.

“We’re ready to go take our case to the American public,” Rollins said. “What America said on both sides of the aisle tonight is that we want change, we want hope, and we want the best for those young people.”

The candidates will head to New Hampshire overnight for a five-day sprint in that state’s first-in-the-nation primary, to be held Tuesday.

Romney faces what many see as a must-win situation in the Granite State, where, like in Iowa, he had consistently polled as the frontrunner.

“[Huckabee] may get a boost from this, of course, but I'm in a neck-and-neck race there with John McCain,” Romney said on Fox News Channel. “The whole strategy of the campaign, of course, has changed as Mayor Giuliani has drifted down a bit and Mike Huckabee and John McCain have come back up.”

McCain congratulated Huckabee and said the former governor’s positive campaign “should be a lesson to all of us in this race.”

The Arizona senator proved resurgent in the final days in Iowa, a state he didn’t contest in his failed 2000 presidential campaign. But it was clear he was looking ahead to New Hampshire, where he is giving Romney a tough battle.

“We started this together, New Hampshire, eight years ago,” he said in a statement. “In five days, we're going to send the same message we did then: change is coming.”

Giuliani, a national frontrunner who largely punted in Iowa, said his focus remains on other states and that he has a different strategy than the other candidates.

“We’ve had a proportionate strategy,” Giuliani said. “I mean, there are 29 primaries and caucuses between now and the 5th of February, and you've got to win most of them.”