this event tonight. the anticipation was that they would have a much larger crowd in general. so, yeah, there was some general concern. as you mentioned, in mitt romney s speech, he did say for the first time, we expect a first or a second. there was a lot more confidence leading into tonight s contest than there was obviously, coming out of it. thanks so much for staying up late. it is not that late out there. it s really late here. but thank you for sticking around. appreciate it. reporter: it s still tuesday here. that s right. early wednesday out here on the east coast. back with the panel. let s look at the board again. you never know. we could get more numbers. 56%, 63% of the projected vote is now in. rick santorum still holding on to a 3% lead. you know, when you start getting up into these numbers, a lot can change, the lead can change. but if it spreads out, some of these counties have to be big
with 40.24%, 36,424 and mitt romney is second with 34.9% of the vote. 22,855 votes cast. newt gingrich comes in third with 12.81% of the vote, 8,390. and congressman ron paul at 11.77% of the vote, 7,708 votes cast. we have a total of about 65,489 votes with 99% of precincts reporting. okay, mr. chairman. it s definitive. he s the winner. just characterize the campaign there in colorado for me, if you could? i mean, the romney campaign going in seemed like it felt confident on the ground. did you see a shift in late days, towards rick santorum, besides today, obviously? caller: late days, obviously.
congratulate senator santorum, wish him the very best. we will keep on campaigning down the road. but i expect to become our nominee with your help. [cheers and applause] so i want to congratulate all of my fellow republicans, particularly senator santorum. and i look forward to the contest to come. but we are going to take our message of liberty and prosperity to every corner of the country. and when this primary season is over, we are going to stand united, as a party behind our nominee, to defeat barack obama and to restore the values that have made america the greatest nation in the history of the earth. now, three years ago, you may remember, barack obama came to rol caddo to accept his party s nomination for the presidency. and he rented out a huge stadium. he got some of those styrofoam greek columns and two giant tv
we are getting word from the santorum camp that they are predicting a win as well. associated press has not called this race yet. but you are saying the g.o.p. chairman is confident that santorum has the votes to win colorado. reporter: yes, bret. we don t have total numbers. as you know, some of the results are still coming in. we re still on the phone, our field producer is on the phone with them right now, we are clarifying the numbers. we don t have the final nbut colorado goes to rick santorum. all right. see if we can get the county or the state party chairman to come on and talk to us on the phone, if we can, control room, let s work on that. back with the panel. if that s true and rick santorum pulls off three wins tonight, steve, as i was mentioning, what an amazing trip this has been? look, this is huge. one of the reasons that this was difficult to predict was because there were so little polling, so
surprise. it underscores that every single vote matters. the colorado republican votes at the caucuses was also nmy opinion, the referendum on barack obama. the party is energized, enthused, but not necessarily of one mind as to who should be the standard bearer. that s a process that will play out over the coming months. g.o.p. chairman ryan call. thank you very much for the information and for your time tonight. caller: my great pleasure, bret. thanks for having me on. i should say this, morning on the east coast. rick santorum is the big miner in the colorado caucuses, in the minnesota caucuses, in the missouri primary. he has swept tonight, three contests. we ll be right back with analysis.