Republican Presidential candidate Rick Santorum swept Senate District 38 in a presidential straw poll conducted Tuesday night at two separate Republican caucuses held in Eagan.

Santorum garnered 319 of 798 total votes cast at the two Republican caucuses in Eagan. He was followed by fellow presidential hopeful Mitt Romney with 204 votes. Ron Paul fell into third place with 193 votes, while Newt Gingrich carried only 68. A smattering of other voters cast ballots for Michele Bachmann, Jon Huntsman and even Herman Cain—all of whom have already dropped out of the presidential race.

Hundreds of caucus-goers from 18 precincts within the district packed Black Hawk Middle School to listen to speeches given by local legislators and Mary Pawlenty, wife of former Gov. Tim Pawlenty. After assembling in the school's cafeteria for 30 minutes, the group broke into precincts to vote for local delegates and conduct the presidential straw poll.

"I was expecting the crowd," said 17-year-old Eagan High School student Maggie Parra, who spoke in support of Ron Paul at the rally on Tuesday. Parra, a member of the school's debate team, said she supports Paul because she believes he can bring the economic change she wants to see.

"Just being able to be a part of actual politics for the first time is exciting," she said.

Santorum's victory in District 38 was echoed in other districts across the metro area, and several national news networks, including CNN, predicted late on Tuesday that he would take both Minnesota and Missouri, based on preliminary results.

Though counting still hadn’t been completed by Wednesday morning, it was clear that Santorum had built an unassailable lead throughout Minnesota.

With 93.43 percent of the ballots counted, Rick Santorum had 21,495 votes, or 44.84 percent.  That was about the same percentage of the vote he’d maintained throughout the ballot counting Tuesday night. Ron Paul came in a strong second, with 13,039 votes, or 27.20 percent.

Mitt Romney, the presumed front-runner going into the night, got only 8,108 votes, less than 17 percent. And Newt Gingrich, who won in South Carolina last month, got 5,157 votes, or 10.76 percent. There were 140 votes for write-in candidates.

Santorum’s win wasn’t just impressive for its margin, but for its ubiquity across the state. With counting complete in all but four counties, Ron Paul won just four, in scattered rural areas across the state, and tied with Santorum in Lincoln County, on the South Dakota border. Paul did better in major cities, nearly scraping out a win in Ramsey County. Romney was far back in the counting throughout the state; in McLeod, Sibley and Sherburne counties, for instance, his percentage of votes was in the single digits.

The Eagan caucus wasn't without a few hiccups. At least one ballot given to a voter in Eagan's seventh precinct didn't have Mitt Romney's name included in it. The ballot was quickly traded out for another.

Minutes after the caucus event began, Senate District 38 Republicans Chairman Mike Kaess said he was impressed by the turnout, which he expected to be roughly equal to the turnout at the 2008 caucuses, when approximately 800 people voted. This year, Kaess said, he'd received a number of phone calls from first-time caucus-goers who were curious about the process.

"This is where it all starts, this is where you have the opportunity to voice your opinion, and get the government that you want, but it doesn't stop here," Kaess said.