The race for the Democratic presidential nomination really got rolling Monday, as Iowa voters made their choice to challenge for the presidency -- Massachusetts Senator John Kerry.

Riding an 11th hour surge of support across the midwestern state, Kerry handed a stunning defeat to the perceived front-runner Howard Dean.

"We in Iowa are marking the beginning of the end of the Bush presidency," Kerry told supporters in Ames, Iowa. "That's what this is all about."

Kerry's win kicks-off the presidential campaign, and ends the four-way race that was almost enough to make the typically placid state suddenly exciting.

With the result in hand, Kerry was keen to thank his supporters.

"Thank you Iowa, for making me the comeback Kerry," he said.

"Not so long ago this campaign was written off... but you listened, you stood the ground.. so that together we can take on George Bush and the special interests."

Kerry led the ranks of Democrat contenders until outsider Dean, a former Vermont governor, rose to prominence by opposing the recent invasion of Iraq.

Before the vote, Dean was leading the national polls.

And close behind were the three other leading contenders -- Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, Congressman Dick Gephardt of Missouri and Kerry.

With those names top of mind, voters headed out to the caucuses to choose a candidate they believe can challenge President George W. Bush for the keys to the Oval Office.

By handing the decorated Vietnam vet the win, the nomination race is again considered wide open.

Once the votes were counted, Edwards laid claim to a second-place finish.

In an interview on CNN, Edwards said that despite a cloud of negative campaigning, his message ultimately reached voters.

"Finally, here at the end, caucus goers here in Iowa heard it and that's the reason for this momentum and this surge."

Suprisingly, Dean failed to deliver on his reputation, coming in a distant third.

Refusing to utter the word disappointed when asked for his reaction Monday night, Dean told CNN's Larry King he's already come to terms with the results.

"If you had told me last year I was going to come third in Iowa I would have been delighted," Dean said, adding his untempered excitement about the upcoming races.

Eager to show his unwavering enthusiasm, Dean later roused supporters at his Iowa campaign headquarters with a WWE-style rallying cry.

"We will not give up," Dean declared, pumping his fist in his shirtsleeves. "We have just begun to fight."

But for Gephardt -- the winner of the 1988 caucuses -- his early showing of only 11 per cent support was disappointing.

Addressing supporters, Gephardt acknowledged his disappointment.

"This didn't come out the way we wanted it," he told the subdued crowd.

With such a poor showing, it was widely reported the 33-year veteran Democrat would announce he is dropping out of the U.S. presidential race.

Conceding defeat, Gephardt praised his competition.

"One of them will wind up carrying the banner," he said. "I will support that candidate in any way that I can.

"My campaign may be ending tonight... but our fight will never end. We will reclaim the White House in 2004 -- because we have to."

The other Democrat candidates on the slate were Ohio congressman Dennis Kucinich -- who took one per cent -- and social activist Rev. Al Sharpton.

Bush unopposed

With Democrats making their choice for a challenger to pit against Bush, Republicans were also attending caucuses across Iowa.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani were among the high profile Republicans recruited to motivate their party to begin the process of nominating the president to his second term.

Although there is no opposition to the sitting president, state party officials say the 32 delegates Iowa is sending to the party's National Convention in New York won't officially be allocated to Bush until the state party's own convention in June.

The President will do his best to grab the spotlight from the Iowa Tuesday, as he prepares to deliver his annual state of the union address.

Iowa's political role

With its 2.9 million residents, the midwestern state is the United States' 30th most populous.

That means once the votes are counted, it will only account for two per cent of the almost 4,400 delegates who will attend the Democratic National Convention in Boston. They'll be gathering to choose their party's candidate to challenge Bush in November.

Though its numerical impact may be small, the intimacy of the Iowa campaign helps make it disproportionately important.

Politically, Iowa and the small New England state of New Hampshire -- where a primary will be held Jan. 27 -- help set the tone for the rest of the presidential nomination race.

Since 1976, only Bill Clinton has lost Iowa and gone on to win the presidential nomination. However, Clinton was a solid second in New Hampshire, and no successful nominee has placed worst than third in that contest.

Perhaps with that in mind, two of the other contenders considered frontrunners for the Democrat nomination opted out of the Iowa caucuses.

Retired general Wesley Clark, who is running second to Dean nationally in some polls, and Senator Joe Lieberman decided to focus on New Hampshire's primary next week instead.

Although the state nomination campaigns will continue until early June, it should clear who will win the Democrat nomination by March 2, called "Super Tuesday," when 11 states hold their votes.