GLENWOOD SPRINGS — Turnout for party caucuses was heavy Tuesday night in Garfield County, as Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney claimed victory among county caucus voters.

The Garfield County Republicans were the first to report their numbers. Across the county, party faithful cast 572 ballots, giving Romney 317 votes of those votes or 55 percent of the total. John McCain was second with 113, and Mike Huckabee was third with 86. Following in fourth was Ron Paul, who received 51 votes.

Although Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson have both dropped out of the race, Giuliani received one vote and Thompson took in another four votes from county voters.

“Some folks just don’t give up,” said Milt Blakey, chair of the Garfield County

Republicans, who reported his local party’s numbers to the state party.

Blakey said the turnout of Republicans in the county on Tuesday was “very good in comparison to caucuses in recent years.” He said it could be the largest caucus turnout county Republicans have seen in the last 10 years.

He said the Silt Fire Station, where he was at Tuesday night, was packed with Republicans.

“We filled the place,” Blakey said. “We had a great turnout. We had a lot of people and a lot of new people.”

County Democrats, in their presidential preference polls, gave Obama a huge victory. He received 675 caucus votes — or about 71 percent of the 947 raw votes cast Tuesday night.

Hillary Clinton was second with 249 votes, which equaled 26 percent of the county Democratic caucus votes. Edwards, who has dropped out of the race, was third with 13 votes. Another 10 people were uncommitted.

Ed Sands, chair of the Garfield County Democratic Party, said the turnout for county Democrats could be the biggest the local party has had in decades.

“We have never had anything come close to those kinds of numbers,” Sands said. “We have never had caucus this size before.”