TAMPA, Florida (AP) — Mitt Romney won the pivotal Republican primary in Florida, thrashing Newt Gingrich and taking a big step toward becoming his party's challenger to President Barack Obama.
With his win in Tuesday's primary, Romney has recovered the political momentum he had lost after Gingrich's victory in the Jan. 21 South Carolina primary. Florida was by far the largest of the first four nominating contests.
Gingrich, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, vowed to fight on. He has twice before bounced back after his campaign appeared dead. But recovering from Tuesday's loss could be especially difficult. Romney has a huge advantage in money and organization as he plows into a series of February contests.
Romney won almost half the votes in a four-person race in Florida. That damages Gingrich's oft-stated contention that the voters who oppose Romney outnumber those who favor him.
Returns from 100 percent of Florida's precincts showed Romney with 46 percent of the vote to 32 percent for Gingrich. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum had 13 percent, and Texas congressman Ron Paul 7 percent. Neither mounted a substantial effort in the state and both were campaigning Tuesday in western states with upcoming caucuses.
The winner-take-all primary was worth 50 delegates to the Republican National Convention in late August in Tampa, Florida. That gave Romney a total of 87, to 26 for Gingrich, 14 for Santorum and four for Paul, with 1,144 required to clinch the nomination.
Romney, in remarks to cheering supporters, was talking party unity like the presumptive nominee. He said he was ready "to lead this party and our nation."
"Mr. President, you were elected to lead, you chose to follow, and now it's time to get out of the way," he said.
Gingrich stressed that most states have yet to vote, as he addressed supporters with a sign on his podium reading "46 States to go."
"We are going to contest everyplace," he said.
The candidates were converging Wednesday on Nevada which holds its caucuses on Saturday. Romney won Nevada's caucuses in 2008, and a substantial Mormon population there could propel him to victory. And in a nomination fight so far defined by debates — typically a strong point for Gingrich — he faces a three-week stretch without one. The candidates will next debate in Arizona on Feb. 22.
Maine also begins holding caucuses on Saturday. Minnesota, Colorado and Missouri all hold contests on Feb. 7. Michigan and Arizona hold primaries on Feb. 28.
Romney's campaign raised $24 million in the final months of 2011, dwarfing his competitors and leaving him with $20 million to fight a primary battle that's increasingly spread across many states. He's had staff and volunteers on the ground in upcoming states for months as he's prepared for a drawn-out fight for delegates to the national nominating convention.
Romney has been the front-runner for most of the Republican campaign even as a series of challengers have soared in the polls, only to quickly fade. A former CEO of a private equity firm, Romney has touted his business experience as he casts himself as the candidate most likely to defeat Obama in an election in which jobs and the economy are the big issues.
He narrowly lost the first contest, the Iowa caucuses, to Santorum in a race so close that he was initially declared the winner. He then easily won in New Hampshire.
But Gingrich countered with the upset victory in South Carolina. He portrayed himself as an authentic conservative, while pointing to Romney's shifting views on abortion and gay rights. Gingrich's fiery attacks on Obama and America's media "elite" struck a chord with voters, even as much of the Republican establishment worried the former House speaker was too erratic to become the party's nominee.
Florida, though, was a tougher state for Gingrich. Voters are more diverse than in South Carolina, one of the most conservative states. The vast size of the state and the variety of media markets make advertising campaigns more important.
Romney and Restore our Future, an outside group supporting him, outspent Gingrich and his outside organization, by about $15.5 million to $3.3 million, an advantage of nearly 5-1.
Romney also shifted tactics. He shed his reluctance to attack Gingrich directly, unleashing hard-hitting ads on television, sharpening his performance in a pair of debates and deploying surrogates to the edges of Gingrich's own campaign appearances, all in hopes of unnerving him.
Gingrich responded by assailing Romney as a man incapable of telling the truth. He sought the support of evangelicals and small-government tea party advocates, running as the antiestablishment insurgent of the party he once helped lead.
Florida will be especially important in the November presidential election, which is essentially a series of simultaneous state-by-state votes. With many states solidly Republican or Democratic, Florida is one of a few unpredictable swing states that will likely determine the winner.
As in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, about half of Florida primary voters said the most important factor for them was backing a candidate who could defeat Obama in November, according to exit poll results conducted for The Associated Press and the television networks.
Not surprisingly, in a state with an unemployment rate hovering around 10 percent, about two-thirds of voters said the economy was their top issue. Nearly nine in 10 said they were falling behind or just keeping up. And half said that home foreclosures have been a major problem in their communities.
No comments:
Post a Comment