TAMPA: Mitt Romney clobbered Newt Gingrich by 14 percentage points in Florida’s Republican primary vote and moves on to the next state, Nevada, on Wednesday with a fat campaign bankroll and a renewed sense that he is the inevitable challenger to President Barack Obama in November.
Ten days after Gingrich hammered Romney by a similar margin in South Carolina, one of the most conservative American states, the chaotic Republican nominating contest took another dramatic turn in Florida, which awards all of its party delegates to the top vote-getter and gives Romney momentum as the race heads to friendlier states out west.
Florida also will be a key battleground in the general election later this year as a large and diverse state with a history of backing candidates from both the Republican and Democratic parties. Romney and his allies poured roughly $16 million into Florida television advertising for the primary alone.
Romney spoke as though he was the presumptive nominee Tuesday night, declaring himself 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.
Obama’s campaign issued a fund-raising appeal Wednesday focused on the millions that Romney and his supporters have poured into negative ads.
”That’s ugly, and it tells us a lot about what to expect from Romney if he wins the Republican nomination,” said campaign manager Jim Messina. ”They’re going to try to spend and smear their way to the White House.”
With Obama vulnerable in his bid for a second White House term because of the slow US economic recovery, about half of Florida primary voters said the most important factor for them was a candidate who could defeat the president, according to exit poll results conducted for The Associated Press and 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.
Florida was one of the hardest hit states in the collapse of the US housing market that caused a near meltdown of the American financial sector in the final months of the George W. Bush presidency.
Romney, who had failed to draw much above a quarter of the vote in three previous primary and caucus contests in smaller states, won almost half the votes in Florida’s four-person race. That damages Gingrich’s contention that the voters who oppose Romney outnumber those who favor him.
Returns from 100 per cent of Florida’s precincts showed Romney with 46 per cent of the vote to 32 per cent for Gingrich. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum had 13 per cent, and Texas congressman Ron Paul 7 per cent. Neither mounted a substantial effort in the state and campaigned Tuesday in western states with upcoming caucuses.
Florida’s winner-take-all primary was worth 50 delegates to the Republican National Convention in late August in Tampa, Florida. That gave Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, a total of 87, to 26 for Gingrich, 14 for Santorum and four for Paul, with 1,144 required to clinch the nomination.
Gingrich, a former speaker of the House of Representatives, said most states have yet to vote. The sign on his podium read ”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 after losing in Florida in 2008, and a substantial Mormon population there could propel him to victory again this time.
Romney dropped out of the presidential race four years ago when Sen. John McCain became the clear favorite among Republicans. His focus on the economy this time could play well in a state with the highest unemployment rate in the US.
”The path ahead is looking very good,” Romney told NBC’s ”Today” show on Wednesday.
The nomination battle so far this year has been defined by an unusually large series of 18 debates, typicallya strong point for Gingrich. But he faltered in Florida as Romney hired a new debate coach and went on the attack. And no debates are planned for three weeks, hurting candidates with little funding who relied on the free national exposure. The candidates next debate in Arizona on Feb. 22.
While the debates have tended to galvanize support for the candidates, massive negative advertising has proved a major factor. Romney’s campaign raised $24 million in the final months of 2011, dwarfing his competitors. He has $20 million to fight the primary battle and has had staff and volunteerson the ground in upcoming states for months as he’s prepared for a drawn-out fight.
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.
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