Romney officially wins Wyoming as caucus voting concludes

Mitt Romney was projected the winner of the Wyoming caucuses by multiple media outlets Thursday morning after the final county in the state held its caucus Wednesday night.

The state voted throughout the month of February through a series of county-by-county straw polls and caucuses, so Romney’s lead was evident for some time. 

{mosads}The former Massachusetts governor won around 39 percent of Wyoming voters, according to the state Republican Party, while Rick Santorum was the choice of a third of attendees. Two in 10 voters selected Ron Paul, while Newt Gingrich rounded out the field with 8 percent.

But, as with the Michigan primary that yielded an even number of delegates to both Romney and Santorum — despite Romney winning the state’s popular vote — the former Pennsylvania senator outperformed his vote total in the delegate count.

Wyoming awards 26 delegates to the Republican National Convention, and Romney will earn 10 of those delegates. Santorum, meanwhile, will take nine, according to a CNN projection, with Paul earning six and Gingrich the lone remaining delegates.

Wyoming is now Romney’s fourth consecutive victory after wins in Maine, Arizona and Michigan last month.

The victory pushes Romney up to a projected 181 delegates, 120 more than Rick Santorum, his closest competitor. Newt Gingrich is projected to have earned 39 delegates, while Ron Paul has captured 33. The eventual Republican candidate will need 1,144 delegates to secure the nomination.

Some 419 delegates are at stake in the coming Super Tuesday contests next week, although since Romney and Paul were the only candidates able to qualify for the ballot in Virginia, where 49 delegates are at stake, it is unlikely that any GOP candidate could leapfrog the presumptive favorite.