AUGUSTA (United States), Feb 12: Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has got his campaign back on track by winning the Maine caucuses, holding off a strong challenge from the outsider, Texas Congressman Ron Paul.

Although Romney will be relieved to have chalked up a victory after losing three contests in mid-week, he saw a huge 31 per cent majority from the 2008 Republican nominating race shrink to just 3 per cent. The narrowness of the win keeps alive doubts about his ability to excite the conservative base, and concerns that a lack of enthusiasm could prove a problem against Barack Obama in November.

Romney now has four wins (New Hampshire, Florida, Nevada and Maine) to Rick Santorum’s three (Minnesota, Iowa and Colorado), plus Santorum’s victory in a popularity contest in Missouri where nothing was at stake. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has just one, South Carolina.

Maine was a big disappointment for Paul who invested a lot of time and had hoped finally to make a breakthrough and win a state.

With 95 per cent of the votes counted — some caucuses were delayed by snow — Romney took 39 per cent, 2,190 votes, to Paul’s 36 per cent with 1,996 votes. Santorum took 18 per cent and Gingrich 6 per cent. Neither Santorum nor Gingrich campaigned in Maine.

Maine was important for Romney because it allows him to finish on a high ahead of an almost three-week break. The next round of contests is not until 28 February with Michigan and Arizona.

Romney, in a statement issued after the Maine result, portrayed himself as a Washington outsider. “I am the only candidate in the race who has never served a day in our broken federal government. The voters of Maine have sent a clear message that it is past time to send an outsider to the White House, a conservative with a lifetime of experience in the private sector, who can uproot Washington’s culture of taxing and spending and borrowing and endless bureaucracy.”

The win in Maine comes on top of a win for Romney in a straw poll at the conservative mega-conference in Washington, the Conservative Political Action Conference. He took 38 per cent of the 3,804 votes, Santorum 31 per cent, Gingrich 15 per cent and Paul 12 per cent.

That is a good result for Romney, given that the attendees tend to be die-hard conservatives, a group that often view him as too moderate.

Paul put his best face on the Maine result, declaring it a tie. He later conceded, in an interview with CNN, that Mitt Romney had re-established himself as frontrunner. He suggested he expected him to be the eventual winner, though noting he had failed to enthuse conservatives. “He is out in front ... He picked up a little steam today,” Paul said.

By arrangement with the Guardian