I thought it was a bit unusual for FOX to call the race with 13% of the vote to be counted and such a small margin separating McCain and Huckabee. Then the Washington State Republican Party officially called it at 11:38 PM.
There is a huge outcry from the Hucakbee campaign over this. David Postman at the Seattle Times has the details here and here. FOX News has more.
I will say two things about this. First, as far as I know, the state party has not suspended counting. The press release last night stated that a full report would be available tomorrow. In caucuses past, the party didn't even have numbers available the day of the caucus. Secondly, all caucus reports were due to the state party HQ by 4:30 PM. I'm assuming they have all the numbers in hand and were able to make the call for McCain but don't want to release final numbers until they were verified.
In any case, I'd like to see the state party release the final numbers ASAP and avoid any further embarassment. The fact that former WSRP state chair, Chris Vance is an outspoken McCain supporter and critic of Huckabee doesn't help matters.
I want to get the count right, and as I have state previously, it would be great to show that Mike can win outside of the South, but we're only probably only talking one or two delegates at most that are at stake here. And delegates elected yesterday are offically unpledged heading into the county convention according to party rules.
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