Mitt Romney claimed a powerful victory in Florida’s presidential primary,
reasserting himself as the front-runner for his party’s nomination and
leaving Newt Gingrich reeling from a likely double-digit defeat and
facing an uncertain path to regaining his post-South Carolina momentum.
With
96 percent of precincts reporting, Romney led Gingrich by 16 percentage
points, 47 percent to 32 percent. Rick Santorum was a distant third,
with 13 percent, followed by Ron Paul with 7 percent.
In just 10 days, Romney went from limping out of South Carolina
— where Gingrich beat him handily — to scoring an almost
across-the-board win against the former House speaker with nearly every
category of GOP primary voter.
