ROMNEY BACK IN DRIVER’S SEAT AFTER BIG WIN IN FLORIDA February 01, 2012
Mitt Romney addresses supporters after big win in Florida.
(NATIONAL) -- Mitt Romney’s big win in Florida's Republican presidential primary, primed by numerous negative TV ads aimed straight at rival Newt Gingrich, appears to have transformed the former governor into the man to beat in the race for the party's nomination to challenge President Barack Obama.
Romney pulled off a resounding victory Tuesday night in Florida, winning 46 percent of the vote to Gingrich's 32 percent in a key battleground state where millions of dollars in attack ads ran focusing on Gingrich's ethical troubles while speaker of the House in the 1990s and other issues.
Now the battleground moves to Nevada on Wednesday as the state by state fight moves on to see which man of the four left standing in the field will challenge President Obama in the November 6 U.S. election.
Romney’s undisputed win in Florida put his presidential campaign train back on the right track following a significant loss to Gingrich in South Carolina just 10 days earlier.
Nonetheless Gingrich has let his followers know he is in this for the long haul so the race for the nomination remains far from settled.
Curiously, despite two televised debates and millions of dollars in advertising plus the focus of the national and international media on Florida, the Republican primary did not end in a record number of GOP voters heading to the polls.
Romney’s win came about on a turnout of roughly 41 percent, which means six out of ten Republican voters stayed away.
However Florida’s Secretary of State Kurt Browning said 41 percent was a “healthy turnout” for a single party primary.
Exit polls showed a number of voters went for Romney because they thought he was the man with the best chance to beat Mr. Obama even though they liked what Gingrich stood for and said.
