Rick Santorum was projected the winner of the Minnesota caucus on Tuesday night by NBC News.
ABC News projected Ron Paul to finish in second place in the North Star State. Mitt Romney was projected to come in third place, with Newt Gingrich in fourth.
Earlier in the night, Santorum was projected to come in first place in Missouri's non-binding primary contest.
The AP reports:
Returns from 25 percent of Minnesota's precincts showed Santorum with 44 percent support, Paul with 27 percent and [Mitt] Romney – who won the state in his first try for the nomination four years ago – with 17 percent. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich trailed with 11 percent.
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He campaigned more aggressively this week than any of the other contenders, and he spent the day hopscotching from Colorado to Minnesota to Missouri in hopes of nailing down a victory in one of the states. Touting himself as a true conservative – a slap at Gingrich – he sought to undermine Romney's electability claim at the same time by predicting the former Massachusetts governor would lose to Obama.
Romney responded by assailing Santorum as an advocate of congressional earmarks – shifting the criticism he had leveled at Gingrich when the Georgian seemed a more imposing threat.
Click here to check out HuffPost's Minnesota caucus real-time results map.
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