Romney projected the winner in Ohio

COLUMBUS, Ohio, March 7 (UPI) -- Mitt Romney was projected to have eked out a narrow victory over Rick Santorum in Ohio's Republican presidential primary Tuesday, late returns indicated.

With nearly all the votes in and Romney stretching his margin to nearly 10,000 votes, NBC and CNN both projected he would carry the state and its 66 delegates.

With the results from 9,083 of the state's 9,421 precincts (96.55 percent) posted on the Ohio secretary of state Web site, Romney polled 37.94 percent (443,540) of the vote to 37.13 percent (434,088) for Santorum. Newt Gingrich was in third place with 14.56 percent (170,194), followed by Ron Paul with 9.23 percent (107,909).

Two one-time candidates who were still on the ballot -- Rick Perry and Jon Huntsman -- received a total of about 13,500 votes between them.