Here's a quick look at the winners and losers out of today's straw poll.

-- Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee didn't finish first, but he has a pretty good claim to being the poll's big winner.

The second-place finisher has less cash than some of his GOP counterparts, and one of his first moves after winning was to try to change that.

"Here's the traction, where's the check?" Huckabee said, addressing Republicans who told him they were staying on the sidelines until his campaign showed it was picking up momentum.

So how did Huckabee vault into the number two spot?

Huckabee, a former Baptist pastor from Arkansas, appears to have resonated well with Christian evangelicals. Bob Vander Plaats, who is his Iowa chairman, was also an asset; many Huckabee supporters have said the former GOP gubernatorial candidate was another reason to support the former Arkansas governor. Eric Woolson, Huckabee's Iowa campaign director, also knows something about straw polls, working for George W. Bush's winning team in 1999 before helping Huckabee to this surprise second-place finish.

And don't forget, Huckabee also had to overcome a late ad campaign from Club for Growth.net, which criticized him for a "tax-and-spend track record" as governor. In the end, the ads may have only served to elevate his name ID with Republican straw poll attendees.

Iowa Independent reports that another tax group, Americans for Fair Taxation, may have boosted Huckabee's support with the voters and other supporters they brought in by bus.

IowaPolitics.com held a luncheon with Huckabee back in April, before he officially declared his candidacy. At that time, the folksy candidate criticized the Bush administration's handling of Hurricane Katrina and blasted the former Republican-led Congress. Listen to audio and read IowaPolitics.com coverage of the luncheon

-- First-place finisher Mitt Romney is obviously a winner, nearly doubling up on his nearest competitor and basically matching the percentage George W. Bush had in 1999 (31.5 percent for Romney compared to 31.3 percent for Bush), although he did it with fewer votes (4,516 for Romney compared to 7,418 for Bush).

See a new Romney campaign release for more comparisons between Romney and past straw poll winners.

But it's more of a sigh of relief than a victory shout for Team Romney, who needed to live up to high expectations to stay atop the heap in Iowa. After the organizational and financial advantage he enjoyed, anything less than today's convincing win could have dulled his early-state frontrunner status.

Sidenote: House Minority Leader Christopher Rants, a Romney supporter, may just have a future in political prognostication. After the polls closed and before the final tallies were announced, Rants predicted a Romney win, top-three finishes for Huckabee and Sam Brownback and a disappointing day for Tommy Thompson. See IowaPolitics.com video of his four correct predictions.

-- Ron Paul's vocal supporters couldn't propel him to a top-three finish, but they did land him in the top half. The week leading up to the straw poll was the longest stretch he's spent in Iowa so far, and only the third time he's been here this election cycle.

But despite his limited time in the state, his fifth place finish put him just ahead of former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, the candidate who had visited Iowa more than anyone.

-- This looks like the end for sixth-place finisher Tommy Thompson. In the months leading up to the straw poll, the cash-poor campaigner often said he was counting on a strong straw poll showing to open the floodgates to national money. This bottom-half finish will likely end his campaign.

-- Iowa Republicans showed they prefer candidates who take Iowa seriously.

Straw poll no-shows Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson and John McCain, who may have hoped for a surprise bump out of the straw poll, didn't get one. Thompson was the top vote-getter out of the three, but his 203 votes only gave him 1.4 percent of the total. Giuliani netted 183 votes and McCain checked in with 101. It could have been worse for the Arizona senator though: in 1999 only 83 people picked him.

California Congressman Duncan Hunter, who said that today marked the start of his campaign, finished with 174 votes.

-- By Mike Schramm