Despite the narrow margin of victory for Mitt Romney in the northeastern US state of Maine, the win gave the former Massachusetts governor a boost after losing last week's ballots to Rick Santorum in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri. Santorum won 18 percent and Newt Gingrich took 6 percent of the vote.

Some of the caucuses were postponed until February 18 due to a snowstorm that blanketed much of the region, but the state's Republican Party chairman, Charlie Webster, said he thought those votes were not likely to change the outcome.

Romney also won an informal, but important, straw poll among thousands of core conservative activists from around the country who had gathered in Washington for an annual conference. The vote at the Conservative Political Action Conference gave Romney 38 percent to 31 percent for the runner-up Santorum.

The showing appeared to indicate that a speech given by Romney on Friday managed to convince skeptical party members that Romney was conservative enough to represent the Republicans in the November election against US President Barack Obama.

Gingrich and Paul took 15 and 12 percent of the straw poll, respectively. Both have accused Romney of being too liberal to be the Republican's presidential candidate.

Momentum for 'Super Tuesday'

Sarah Palin, a former GOP vice presidential candidate and conservative firebrand, told the Washington meeting not to settle on a nominee too quickly.

"In America, we believe competition strengthens us. Competition elevates our game. Competition will lead us to victory in 2012. I believe that the competition has to keep going," she said.

The next primaries are scheduled for February 28 in Arizona and Romney's childhood home state of Michigan. But all eyes are on March 6 when 11 states vote on so-called Super Tuesday, including key states like Ohio, Massachusetts, Virginia and Georgia.

Republicans will select their presidential candidate at a national convention in Tampa Bay, Florida, in late August. Romney leads the overall race for delegates so far, with 123. Santorum has 72, Gingrich 32 and Paul 19. It takes 1,144 delegates to win the nomination.

Author: Gregg Benzow / AP,AFP,dpa
Editor: Sean Sinico