Romney sweeps Florida; Gingrich vows to press on

By Daniel Malloy and David Espo


The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and The Associated Press


TAMPA — Mitt Romney routed Newt Gingrich in the Florida primary Tuesday night, rebounding smartly from an earlier defeat and taking a major step toward the Republican presidential nomination. Despite the one-sided setback, Gingrich vowed to press on.

Gingrich had been resigned to his fate here for days, leaving the only drama Tuesday as the size of his defeat. His campaign distributed signs to supporters in Orlando that said it all: “46 states to go.”

The signs, he said, were a reminder to the “elite media” who question his ability to continue. “I just want to reassure them,” he said. “We are going to contest every place and we are going to win and we will be in Tampa as the nominee in August.”

Romney, talking unity like a nominee, said he was ready “to lead this party and our nation” — and turn Democratic President Barack Obama out of office. In remarks to cheering supporters, the former Massachusetts governor unleashed a strong attack on Obama and said the fight for the GOP nomination “does not divide us.”

“Primary contests are not easy, and they’re not supposed to be,” he said in his victory speech. “Our opponents in the other party have been watching and they like to comfort themselves that a competitive primary will leave us divided and weak. A competitive primary does not divide us. It prepares us, and we will win.”

The victory was the first for Romney that came without an asterisk. The narrow win he appeared to have the night of the Iowa caucuses was overturned two weeks later in the certified results.

His New Hampshire win was discounted by his Republican rivals because he was seen as a favorite son from a neighboring state.

A big turnout

The Florida primary drew more voters than the first three contests combined. Romney’s support in urban areas with concentrations of affluent and older Republicans was enough to overcome tea party supporters, evangelicals and self-described “very conservative” voters who have generally coalesced around Gingrich — though he also seemed to gain strength among tea party supporters.

“Thank you FL!” an exuberant Romney tweeted minutes after the race was called. “While we celebrate this victory, we must not forget what this election is really about: defeating Barack Obama.”

Gingrich said he will rebound as he did in the summer, when his senior staff quit and most observers counted him out.

“It turns out if you have ideas and you have solutions and you are positive and you communicate a better future and you have a history of actually doing something in the past, the combination begins to convince the American people,” he said.

Gingrich insisted this is now a “two-man race” between him and Romney, and his place lies within the conservative insurgent wing of the party.

“I am putting together a people’s campaign,” he said. “Not a Republican campaign, not an establishment campaign, not a Wall Street-funded campaign.”

Romney never mentioned Gingrich in his speech, and Gingrich made only oblique reference to Romney. Gingrich took the opportunity to roll out a pair of new zingers on President Barack Obama about the frequency of his golf outings and Obama’s impression of soul singer Al Green that recently made the rounds on YouTube.

“Mr. President, you cannot sing your way past the disaster in your presidency,” he said.

The couple of hundred supporters gathered in an Orlando hotel cheered, remaining supportive in spite of the large margin of defeat.

Larry Calabretta, of Orlando, was upbeat. He had volunteered for Gingrich in Florida by making phone calls and waving signs on street corners.

“It’s early,” he said. “Nothing’s going to be anywhere near decided until after Super Tuesday, if then. You’re going to have a lot of Southern states. We just have to see how it all shakes down.”

Political momentum

The outcome promised to reorder the rest of the Republican field. Sensing vulnerability in Gingrich, Rick Santorum began running a new advertisement in Nevada and Colorado comparing Gingrich’s positions to the dual Democratic villainy of Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Obama, saying his support for policies including the Wall Street bailout was “a slap in the face to the tea party.”

Santorum and Texas Rep. Ron Paul had not mounted a substantial effort in Florida, and they finished far behind.

The winner-take-all primary was worth 50 Republican National Convention delegates, by far the most of any primary state so far.

But the bigger prize was precious political momentum. That belonged to Romney when he captured the New Hampshire primary three weeks ago, then swung stunningly to Gingrich when he countered with a South Carolina upset 11 days later. Now it’s back with the former Massachusetts governor, after a 10-day comeback that marked a change to more aggressive tactics, coupled with an overwhelming financial advantage.

Romney called Florida “a microcosm of the entire nation” earlier Tuesday and said the outcome in the state would be “a pretty good indication of your prospects nationally.”

He acknowledged the nominating process would be long, as he works to amass the 1,114 delegates necessary to win the party’s nod. But he said he hoped Florida would provide momentum to carry him through the string of states farther west that follow on the nominating calendar.

If there was one part of the state Gingrich could take some comfort from, it was its northwestern panhandle, which resembles the nation’s South. Gingrich and Romney won equal support there, according to surveys of voters leaving polling stations — giving hope to Gingrich for the coming Southern contests and pause to Romney, who struggled for traction in South Carolina.

The New York Times and Washington Post contributed to this article.