Washington Republicans held a "straw poll" over the last week of December to test the strength of the presidential candidate field. It pretty well mirrored Iowa and the nation...at that time.

Here's the breakdown, released yesterday by the Washington State Republican Party:

Candidate	Percentage
Mitt Romney	27.49%
Newt Gingrich	25.77%
Ron Paul	18.43%
Rick Santorum	11.31%
Michele Bachmann	8.76%
Rick Perry	5.47%
Jon Huntsman	2.77%

In that least week of 2011, Gingrich was starting to fade and Rick Santorum was just beginning an uptick in Iowa, and that can be read in to the Washington numbers. Swap those two results, and the top four look quite a bit like Iowa caucus results.

Remember: Washington is also a caucus state this year...as opposed to some strange hybrid of a caucus and a presidential primary, as it has been for the last couple of cycles.

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