Romney cements position as Republican front-runner

Irish Sun Wednesday 1st February, 2012

TAMPA, Florida - Mitt Romney cemented his status as front-runner in the Republican presidential race with a big victory in the bitterly-contested high-stakes Florida primary, defeating his main rival Newt Gingrich.

The former Massachusetts governor polled 46%, former House Speaker Gingrich got 32%, while 13% went to former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and 7% for Texas Rep. Ron Paul, according to the Florida Department of State website Tuesday.

The Florida primary was the biggest of the 2012 election season so far and saw a bitter TV advertisement battle between the two main contestants.

As his supporters cheered "Mitt, Mitt, Mitt", Romney thanked them for what he termed a "great victory."

Romney, 64, has been the front-runner for much of the race, but was thrashed by Gingrich, 68, in South Carolina's primary earlier this month.

However, he managed to overturn his rival's lead after two high-decibel debates and a blitz of attacks on television.

Romney and his allies pumped in around $16 million into Florida TV advertising - 13,000 TV ads - in mainly attacking Gingrich, who in contrast, could only spend about $3 million in reply and had around 200 TV ads.

In the blitz of TV advertisement unleashed by Romney in the state, a massive 68 per cent were negative and against Gingrich. While less than 0.1 per cent were crafted to offer a positive image of Romney.

After the Florida loss, Gingrich refrained from congratulating Romney. He said that the race has narrowed down. "It is now clear that this will be a two-person race between the conservative leader Newt Gingrich and the Massachusetts moderate," Gingrich said as supporters waved signs declaring, "46 states to go."

And in a reference to the high-powered advertisement campaign launched against him in Florida, he added: "We're going to have people power defeat money power in the next six months."

No candidate so far has more than 10% of the 1,144 delegates needed to win the nomination at the August convention.

Santorum and Paul, realizing they were out of the reckoning in Florida, chose to concentrate on the next contests.

Santorum campaigned in Colorado and Nevada on Tuesday, while Paul was in Maine over the weekend and spent Tuesday in Colorado and Nevada. Nevada's caucuses take place Saturday, while Minnesota and Colorado hold their caucuses on February 7.

Sarah Palin said: "Romney and Newt Gingrich are the two front runners and at the end of the day it's one or the other."

In a sign of his new prominence, Romney is to receive Secret Service protection "within days", a federal law enforcement source told CNN.