Romney Blisters Gingrich In Florida Primary

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) – Mitt Romney jumped to a commanding lead in the Florida primary last night, rebounding powerfully from the previous week’s defeat and reaching for a resounding victory over Newt Gingrich in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

Returns showed Romney with 48 percent of the vote, to 31 percent for Gingrich. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum had 13 percent, and Texas Rep. Ron Paul 7 percent, although they did not mount a substantial effort in the state.

The winner-take-all primary was worth 50 Republican National Convention delegates.

But the bigger prize was precious political momentum in the race to pick an opponent for Democratic President Barack Obama this fall. 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.

About half of Florida primary voters said the most important factor for them was backing a candidate who can defeat Obama in November. 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.

Gingrich swept into Florida from South Carolina, only to run headlong into a different Romney from the one he had left in his wake in South Carolina.

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, shed his reluctance to attack Gingrich, the former House speaker, unleashing hard-hitting ads, sharpening his performance in a pair of debates and deploying surrogates to the edges of Gingrich’s own campaign appearances, all in hopes of unnerving him.

Gingrich responded by assailing Romney as a man incapable of telling the truth and vowed to remain in the race until the Republican National Convention next summer. He won the endorsement of campaign dropout Herman Cain and increasingly sought the support of evangelicals and tea party advocates, a former House speaker running as the anti-establishment insurgent of the party he once helped lead.

Santorum had no money to back up his strong debate performances. He left the state at one point, saying he was going home to Pennsylvania to prepare his income tax returns. But he stayed longer than anticipated, because of the hospitalization of his 3-year-old daughter with pneumonia. The girl has a rare genetic disorder, Trisomy 18.