After a strange weekend when the Washington State Republican Party decided to stop counting the votes at one point, it looks like John McCain is the winner of the Washington Caucuses:
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — The Washington state Republican Party released additional results late Monday from last weekend’s presidential caucuses, and declared Arizona Sen. John McCain the winner once again.
“It’s clear to me that Sen. McCain was the winner of the precinct caucuses,” state party Chairman Luke Esser said in a conference call with reporters late Monday night. “Now let me clarify about that that the precinct caucuses are the first step of a three-step process and it’s not clear at all yet how many Washington State delegates he’ll end up with.”
County and state conventions are the next step.
Of Washington’s 40 delegates to the Sept. 1-4 GOP national convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul, 37 are elected: 18 through the caucus and convention process and 19 selected through the Feb. 19 presidential primary. Three are automatic: the state chairman, the national committeewoman and the national committeeman.
With 96 percent of weekend results in, Esser said McCain had 3,191 precinct delegates (25.6 percent) to Mike Huckabee’s 2,898 (23.3 percent) – a difference of just 293.
Texas Rep. Ron Paul won 21 percent of Washington’s precinct delegates, and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who dropped out of the race this past week, got 15 percent, according to the latest numbers from the GOP.
So that clears that up, I guess.
Huh? The link you provided says Esser still can’t guarantee counting 100%, that 4 counties didn’t even send in delegate counts, that even now 2 counties still haven’t sent in complete counts, and that McCain’s spokesman had full confidence in Esser…might that be because of Esser’s relationship to McCain’s Washington state campaign chair, the Attorney General, in whose office Esser used to work? What’s so hard about counting?