PORTLAND, Maine Mitt Romney averted embarrassment Saturday when he was declared the winner of Maine's nonbinding caucuses.

He won 39 percent of the vote, barely edging out Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, the only other Republican candidate to campaign actively in the state. Paul drew 36 percent. Rick Santorum won 18 percent, and Newt Gingrich 6 percent.

Romney scraped by Paul by just 194 votes. But fewer than 6,000 votes were cast - about 2 percent of registered Republicans.

Paul was unbowed, and gave no indication that he would drop out.

"We're not going away," he told his supporters.

Although the vote had no substantive meaning in terms of delegates, losing it could have created a political headache for Romney, the former governor of nearby Massachusetts, and extended a negative storyline that had been building since last week when he lost Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri to Santorum.

Those losses suddenly increased the symbolic importance of Maine's all-but-ignored caucuses, and an additional loss Saturday in his own backyard would have magnified concerns that he could not seal the deal with voters.

Romney also won the annual straw poll of activists at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington on Saturday. He took 38 percent of the 3,408 votes cast, compared with 31 percent for Santorum, 15 percent for Gingrich and 12 percent for Paul of Texas, who won the last two years but did not attend this time.

Last-minute efforts

Romney was among those who had ignored Maine, assuming he had it sewn up, until he arrived Friday night. In the face of tough questioning at a town-hall-style meeting in Portland and the evidence of strong organization by Paul, Romney decided to stay over Saturday and campaigned at caucus sites. His campaign added a last-minute jolt of radio and television advertisements.

Paul made a foray to the state last month and also visited caucus sites on Saturday.

It was not clear how much the late activity helped either candidate because many people had already voted in the rolling caucuses, which began on Jan. 29.

"Romney's win shows that the pragmatists in the Maine Republican Party really came out in force," said Sandy Maisel, a political scientist at Colby College in Waterville, Maine.

"While the tea party element is strong," Maisel added, "those whose principle goal is beating President Obama came to the fore."

Although New England Republicans are generally more moderate than the party's supporters elsewhere, the Maine members are fiercely independent, and the state has become a cauldron of activity for tea party supporters, fiscal conservatives and libertarians.

"We like to be left alone by government," Charlie Webster, the state party chairman, said in an interview. "We're an independent lot."