After losing the battle he thought he was going to conquer in Colorado, Mitt Romney takes the Maine Caucuses, announced by the Maine Republican Party on Saturday night in Portland. Romney received 2,190 votes, Ron Paul 1, 996, Rick Santorum 989, and Newt Gingrich 349. The Maine vote is a nonbinding vote and results in no direct distribution of delegates to the Republican National Convention.
The victory in Maine came just after the former Massachusetts governor won a straw vote of a party activist in Washington at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Romney had 38 percent of the vote, Santorum 31 percent, Gingrich 15 percent, and Paul 12 percent. “The voters of Maine have sent a clear message that it is past time to send an outsider to the White House, a conservative with a lifetime of experience in the private sector, who can uproot Washington’s culture of taxing and spending and borrowing and endless bureaucracy,” Romney said after his win. The Michigan and Arizona primaries will be held on Feb. 28.
