Romney tallies narrow victory in Maine

Feb 12, 2012, 3:30 GMT

Washington - Mitt Romney notched his fourth Republican state primary victory with 39 per cent in the north-eastern state of Maine's presidential preference caucus.

But he was not far ahead of Ron Paul, 76, who received 36 per cent in a rare strong performance for the libertarian Texas congressman.

Rick Santorum, 53, won 18 per cent and Newt Gingrich, 68, took 6 per cent of the votes the latest contest for party nomination.

Romney, 64, also won an informal but important straw poll among thousands of core conservative activists from around the country who gathered in Washington for an annual conference.

Despite the narrow margin of victory in Maine, it gave a boost to the former Massachusetts governor who was trying to regain his footing after being upstaged by Santorum in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri earlier in the week.

Charlie Webster, the Maine Republican Party chairman, cautioned that the state caucus had not yet allocated delegates to the August national convention in Tampa, Florida, nor had all of the groups polled on Saturday stated a presidential preference.

The final allocation will be made at the state party convention in May, Webster said.

Romney has state primaries in New Hampshire, Florida and Nevada. Santorum has four victories in Colorado, Minnesota, Missouri and Iowa, while Gingrich took South Carolina.

The next primary events are February 28, in Arizona and Romney's childhood home state of Michigan. But all eyes are on March 6, so-called super Tuesday, when 11 states vote.

The straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference gave Romney 38 per cent lead to 31 per cent for Santorum.

The showing seemed to indicate that a speech on Friday managed to convince sceptical conservatives that Romney was conservative enough to represent the party in November's presidential elections - a continuing challenge for the moderate.

Gingrich and Paul took 15 and 12 per cent of the straw poll, respectively. Both accuse Romney of being too liberal to be the presidential candidate.