Romney routs Gingrich in Florida

A commanding win in Florida made Mitt Romney the clear front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination and raised the question of how long Newt Gingrich can continue to contest the race.

Unofficial returns showed Romney with a double-digit lead, and nearing a majority against three other candidates. Gingrich vowed to fight on, as did Ron Paul and Rick Santorum.

But how hard Gingrich can fight — and where — will depend more on his fundraising than on his personal determination, or the hostility he and Romney showed toward each other in the bitter campaign.

In a victory speech delivered to a crowd of 2,000 in the Tampa Convention Center chanting "Mitt, Mitt, Mitt," Romney acknowledged that the battle will continue but spoke as if his victory were assumed.

"Three gentlemen are serious and able competitors and they're still in the race," he said.

Of the venomous campaign, he said Democrats "like to comfort themselves with the thought that a competitive campaign will leave us divided and weak."

But, he said, "A competitive primary does not divide us, it prepares us. … When we gather back here in Tampa seven months from now for our convention, ours will be a united party."

Gingrich, at his election night gathering in Orlando, pointed to signs in the crowd saying, "46 more states" as what he called a signal to the "elite media."

"The same people who said I was dead in June and July — now they'll be back saying, 'What's he going to do?' … We are going to contest every place and we are going to win and we will be in Tampa as the nominee in August."

Gingrich attributed his loss to "a 5-to-1 onslaught" in advertising spending, but vowed a campaign against "the establishment in Washington and both parties."

He said the Florida vote made it clear "that this will be a two-person race between the conservative leader Newt Gingrich and the Massachusetts moderate," and "We're going to have people power defeat money power in the next six months."

If Florida's winner-take-all delegate allocation system remains in place despite a potential challenge, Romney's win gives him all 50 Florida delegates to the Republican National Convention in Tampa.

That boosts him to a big early lead in delegates — 87, counting backers who are RNC members, compared with 26 for Gingrich, 14 for Santorum, and four for Paul, with 1,144 needed to clinch the nomination.

Romney would have won 99 delegates in Florida, but the Jan. 31 primary date violated RNC rules, resulting in a 50 percent penalty.

Notwithstanding the reduced prize for the winner, the two Republican leaders most responsible for moving the primary date to Jan. 31 — state Senate President Mike Haridopolos and state House Speaker Dean Cannon — have proclaimed themselves happy with the results of the move.

"We achieved our goal of maximizing Floridians' voices, and if I had it to do it all over again, I would," Cannon said. He said the date change made Florida "the first chance for the candidates to run a media and total ground-game campaign" after testing their "retail political skills" in the smaller, early states.

The next primary prizes available are caucuses in Nevada with 28 delegates Saturday; Colorado with 36 and Minnesota with 40 on Tuesday; then primaries in Arizona with 29 and Michigan with 30 on Feb. 28.

That schedule leans toward Romney, who dominated Nevada and Colorado in 2008, won Michigan convincingly and ran a strong second to favorite son John McCain in Arizona.

For Gingrich, the question is whether he can survive to March 6, this year's version of Super Tuesday, with 11 states including Ohio, which is often expected to deliver a decisive outcome.

"February's going to be a difficult month for him, but if he can make it to Super Tuesday, he could be a force again by then," said former GOP strategist and University of Southern California political scientist Daniel Schnur.

The big states with winner-take-all primaries – Texas, New York, Pennsylvania and California – come April to June.

A big question for Gingrich is getting enough campaign money to continue the fight.

According to a campaign spokeswoman, the campaign was down to $600,000 in the bank before the South Carolina primary. He raised $5 million in January, but the campaign wouldn't say how much of that has been spent.

The comparatively well-heeled Romney also wouldn't say how much cash his campaign has, but had nearly $20 million on Dec. 31 before spending heavily in Florida.

Santorum campaign aides said his campaign raised $4.2 million in January, boosted by the revelation that he won the Iowa caucuses, and he now has $1.1 million in the bank.

Paul and Santorum largely conceded Florida to Gingrich and Romney, who were better financed for the state's expensive media markets. They participated in the state's two debates, but had comparatively few other campaign appearances — none, in Paul's case.

Paul was more interested in the coming states with proportional delegate allocation, where he can pick up second- or third-place delegate prizes.

In a speech from Nevada, Santorum vowed to continue his race, however, saying he was the true conservative alternative to Romney.

"Newt Gingrich had his opportunity ... to be the conservative alternative, and it didn't work. He became the issue."

He vowed to be "a strong principled conservative … who's going to make Obama the issue."

Paul, in Nevada after campaigning in Maine and Colorado in the past few days, said he had spoken to Romney on Tuesday night and told him, "I would see him soon in the caucus states."

"If you have an energized group of people that really believe in the campaign … it's better to work in the caucus states," he said.