PORTLAND, Maine — The head of the Maine Republican Party says Mitt Romney is still the winner of this month’s GOP presidential caucuses following a recount of the votes.
The party last Saturday announced Romney was the narrow winner over Ron Paul, with a 194-vote winning margin out of 5,585 votes. Rick Santorum came in third and Newt Gingrich in fourth.
The party decided to recount the votes after determining that votes from caucuses in Waterville, Belfast and a number of other towns were left out of the final results, and that the tallies for Paul and Romney were reversed in Portland.
Chairman Charlie Webster said the exact vote count of Maine’s nonbinding straw poll would be released Friday afternoon, ahead of Saturday’s caucuses in East Machias in Washington County.