Rick Santorum running ahead in Minnesota, Colorado caucuses… and the Missouri primary

After going more than a month with­out a vic­to­ry (or even a sec­ond place fin­ish, for that mat­ter) it looks like Rick San­to­rum will final­ly get to bask in the glow of vic­to­ry for a change. In two states that are hold­ing cau­cus­es tonight (Min­neso­ta and Col­orado) he is cur­rent­ly run­ning well ahead of his rivals, and in the mean­ing­less Mis­souri pri­ma­ry (which won’t be used to allo­cate any del­e­gates) he has more than twice the num­ber of votes that estab­lish­ment favorite Mitt Rom­ney has.

Here are the cur­rent results from each state:

Min­neso­ta (as of 8:18 PM): 51.32% of precincts reporting

• Newt Gin­grich — 10.82%
• Ron Paul — 27.02%
• Mitt Rom­ney — 16.64%,
• Rick San­to­rum — 45.17%

Col­orado (as of 8:18 PM): 3.4% of precincts reporting

• Rick San­to­rum: 47.72%
• Mitt Rom­ney: 22.48%
• Newt Gin­grich: 17.33%
• Ron Paul: 12.33%

Mis­souri (as of 8:18 PM): 98% of precincts reporting

• Mitt Rom­ney: 25.3%
• Ron Paul: 12.2%
• Rick San­to­rum: 55.2%

A few things to keep in mind:

• San­to­rum could relin­quish his lead in Col­orado by the time all the results come in. It’s still ear­ly, and returns are still being tab­u­lat­ed by the state’s Repub­li­can Par­ty. Updates are com­ing in slowly.
• Newt Gin­grich was not on the bal­lot in Mis­souri, which like­ly helped Rick San­to­rum win a much larg­er share of the vote than he oth­er­wise would have. Gin­grich’s cam­paign has dis­missed the Mis­souri pri­ma­ry as a “beau­ty con­test”, not­ing that the results are not bind­ing and won’t be used to allo­cate any del­e­gates. Even if the pri­ma­ry is noth­ing more than a well pub­li­cized straw poll, it still indi­cates Mitt Rom­ney is not the first choice of many Repub­li­can voters.
• Tonight’s Repub­li­can cau­cus­es in Col­orado and Min­neso­ta took place at the precinct lev­el, and con­sti­tute a pre­lim­i­nary round in the cau­cus and con­ven­tion cycles in those states. The per­cent­ages we’re see­ing tonight for each can­di­date could change, depend­ing on what hap­pens in the next round.

TPM has a recap of San­to­rum’s vic­to­ry speech in the Show Me State.

UPDATE, 9:16 PM: Mitt Rom­ney has pulled even with Rick San­to­rum in Colorado.

• Mitt Rom­ney: 36.59% (6,019 votes)
• Rick San­to­rum: 36.49% (6,003 votes)
• Newt Gin­grich: 14.24% (2,343 votes)
• Ron Paul: 12.46% (2,050 votes)

In 2008, Rom­ney won the Col­orado cau­cus­es pret­ty hand­i­ly. But he’s not doing so well this time around.