After low-key start, Romney now talking about winning Iowa

SIOUX CITY - Sensing an opening, Mitt Romney suddenly is talking about winning Iowa.

The former Massachusetts governor had been focusing elsewhere and hadn't been to Iowa in two months. But now he's ramping up his efforts in the state little more than 10 weeks before its presidential caucuses that lead off the GOP nomination contests. And, with the volatile race here anyone's for the taking, he's hoping for an outright victory that would propel him into the New Hampshire primary and states beyond.

“I will be here again and again, campaigning here. I'd love to win Iowa. Any of us would,” Romney said, answering a voter's question at an event at Morningside College in Sioux City.

At his next stop, in rural Treynor, east of Council Bluffs, Romney exuded confidence when he told his audience: “There's a good shot I might become the next president of the United States. It's not a sure thing, but it's a good shot.”

His daylong trip through the most conservative part of the state came as polls show him at the top of the GOP field in the wake of a series of strong debate performances.

He lost here in 2008 when he tried to convince voters he was a strong cultural conservative. But he couldn't sway influential evangelical conservatives to overlook their skepticism of his Mormon faith and his reversals on abortion and gay rights.