GOP Candidates Face Last Stop Before Super Tuesday In Washington
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A Vancouver rally supporting Ron Paul in 2008. He won just 8 percent of the caucus vote that year. (Red Barnes/Flickr)
More than 60,000 voters across 6,700 precincts were expected to participate. Results from the straw poll will not be available until early evening.
From the AP's report:
"All of a sudden we're important and the center of attention," said state Republican chairman Kirby Wilbur. "We're just excited to see people excited."
In the liberal stronghold of Seattle, a crowd of more than 100 gathered at the Labor Temple in the Belltown neighborhood. High school senior Cole Thomas said he was supporting Paul because of his pledges to bring troops back home from overseas, and because he agrees with his Libertarian stances on things like drug policy and other issues. "I'm big on small government," the 18-year-old said. In Olympia, roughly 500 people packed the Red Lion Hotel's basement conference room. The crowd exceeded the expectations of caucus organizers, as evidenced by a shortage of chairs at the site.
"It's nice to see people get off the couch and think their vote is worth something again," said Runyon, a mechanical custodian who supports Mitt Romney.
Romney in fact leads the general race for delegates so far with 173, ahead of Rick Santorum's 87, Newt Gingrich's 33 and Ron Paul's 20. Paul was the only candidate who remained in the state on Saturday, addressing voters in Payallup.
Paul has been banking on collecting delegates as a campaign strategy. Washington will eventually send 43 delegates to August's national convention held in Tampa this year—40 allocated to one lucky candidate in addition to 3 automatic delegates including the state party chairman.
For the first time since 2004, Republicans will base allocations solely on caucus results instead of using a presidential preferential primary, cancelled for budgetary reasons.
