Mitt Romney won the Grand Forks Republican caucus with 32.4 percent of 789 ballots cast in a turnout that surprised veteran party leaders.
Romney got 256 votes, or 32.4 percent; Sen. John McCain got 209 votes, or 26.5 percent; former Arkanasa Gov. Mike Huckabee came in third with 201 votes, or 25.5 percent.
Ron Paul, spurned by many party leaders but the focus of a big grassroots support group, made a strong showing, with 122 votes, 15.4 percent of the vote. Alan Keyes got 1 vote.
Grand Forks Democrats were overwhelmingly in favor of Barack Obama. Out of 2,911 votes cast, Obama got 66 percent of them while Hillary Clinton got just 32 percent. John Edwards, who has dropped out, got 1 percent.
The majority of Obama's votes came from the Democrat's caucus site at UND, which gave the candidate 60 percent of his votes. Clinton got 37 percent of her votes from the UND site.
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In Minnesota, Romney took the Republican vote at the caucus location in Fisher, Minn., which includes the communities of East Grand Forks, Crookston and Fisher. Romney had 31 votes, Mike Huckabee came in second with 26 votes, John McCain third with 23 and Ron Paul fourth with 14 votes. Alan Keyes came in with four votes at the Fisher republican caucus Tuesday.
Democratic voters in East Grand Forks narrowly favored Barrack Obama over Hillary Clinton.
Of the 119 votes cast at the East Grand Forks Democratic caucus location, Obama came in with 61 votes to Clinton's 55. John Edwards and Joseph Biden each received one vote in the community, along with one uncommitted vote.
