Mitt Romney winning Washington Republican precinct caucuses by comfortable margin

Chalk up anoth­er vic­to­ry for Mitt Rom­ney. With more than six­ty per­cent of the votes count­ed, the for­mer Mass­a­chu­setts gov­er­nor is hand­i­ly win­ning Wash­ing­ton’s Repub­li­can precinct cau­cus­es, best­ing Rick San­to­rum and his two oth­er remain­ing oth­er rivals by a com­fort­able mar­gin. Here are the cur­rent results:

Wash­ing­ton Repub­li­can precinct caucuses
Mitt Rom­ney: 36.7% (11,294 votes)
Ron Paul: 24.5% (7,535 votes)
Rick San­to­rum: 24.4% (7,523 votes)
Newt Gin­grich: 11.3% (3,473 votes)

Paul and San­to­rum remain near­ly tied for sec­ond place. Paul has main­tained a tiny-to-slight edge for much of the evening, but that could go away as votes from more San­to­rum-friend­ly coun­ties are tal­lied and reported.

So far, Rom­ney is win­ning King, Pierce, Sno­homish, Kit­sap, Thurston, Clal­lam, Jef­fer­son, Mason, Grays Har­bor, Lewis, Cowlitz, Clark, Wahki­akum, Yaki­ma, Kit­ti­tas, Grant, Adams, Garfield, Wal­la Wal­la, Ben­ton, and Franklin counties.

Ron Paul is win­ning Pend Oreille, Fer­ry, Stevens, Okanogan, Whit­man, Asotin, Klick­i­tat, Ska­ma­nia, and Pacif­ic counties.

Rick San­to­rum has just three coun­ties in his cor­ner: What­com, Lin­coln, and Colum­bia, though he is com­ing in sec­ond in many of the pop­u­lous coun­ties that Rom­ney is win­ning (like Pierce and Kitsap).

Spokane, Skag­it, Dou­glas, and Chelan have yet to report any results at all.

In a state­ment, Mitt Rom­ney thanked Wash­ing­ton Repub­li­cans for their sup­port. (He is no longer in the Ever­green State, hav­ing returned to the east­ern time­zone fol­low­ing yes­ter­day morn­ing’s ral­ly in Bellevue).

“I’m heart­ened to have won the Wash­ing­ton cau­cus­es, and I thank the vot­ers for their sup­port,” Rom­ney said.

“I con­grat­u­late my fel­low Repub­li­cans on a cam­paign well waged. We may dif­fer from one anoth­er in back­ground and expe­ri­ence. But we are unit­ed in our love of this coun­try, and in our belief that with prop­er lead­er­ship Amer­i­ca can do much bet­ter. The vot­ers of Wash­ing­ton have sent a sig­nal that they do not want a Wash­ing­ton insid­er in the White House. They want a con­ser­v­a­tive busi­ness­man who under­stands the pri­vate sec­tor and knows how to get the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment out of the way so that the econ­o­my can once again grow vigorously.”

“With the sup­port of Washington’s vot­ers, I look for­ward with opti­mism to the pri­maries and cau­cus­es to come.”

Sec­ond-place fin­ish­er Ron Paul, mean­while, is hold­ing a cau­cus results par­ty in down­town Seat­tle at the Bell Har­bor Con­fer­ence Cen­ter. Paul’s cam­paign had hoped for a vic­to­ry in Wash­ing­ton so they could final­ly say that they had a state in their win col­umn, but alas, they aren’t get­ting one.

UPDATE, 7:20 PM: Skag­it, Spokane, and Dou­glas have final­ly report­ed some results. The for­mer two are break­ing for Rom­ney and the lat­ter is going for San­to­rum. Still noth­ing from Chelan Coun­ty yet.

Wash­ing­ton Repub­li­can precinct caucuses
76.8% report­ing (5213/6785)
Mitt Rom­ney: 36.2% (14,971 votes)
Ron Paul: 25.1% (10,358 votes)
Rick San­to­rum: 24.4% (10,105 votes)
Newt Gin­grich: 10.8% (4,476 votes)