Florida, Mitt Romney | featured news

Mitt Romney won the Florida presidential primary Tuesday, taking a long stride toward capturing the GOP nomination and dealing a potentially mortal blow to the hopes of the once-resurgent Newt Gingrich.

Mitt Romney opened a double-digit lead over Newt Gingrich in a new poll ahead of Tuesday’s Florida Republican primary, but the Gingrich campaign insisted that the former House speaker is staying in the GOP nomination race for the long haul and remains the only conservative able to beat President Obama in November.

After a brief scare, Mitt Romney appears to have reclaimed the advantage in Florida heading into the final weekend of campaigning before Tuesday's presidential primary.

Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich attack each other ahead of a debate in Florida on Monday, just days after Mr Gingrich's upset in the South Carolina primary. Mr Gingrich's campaign said it received $1m (£643,000) in 24 hours following his primary win in South Carolina.

The Republican contenders for the presidential nomination aimed their fire Thursday night at front-runner Rick Perry while several second-tier candidates tried to gain traction in the GOP field as they faced off at a debate in Orlando, Fla.

Republicans Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee hold a slight lead over President Barack Obama in a new poll of Florida residents on next year's presidential election. If the election were held now, 48 percent said they would vote for Romney while 43 percent preferred Obama. Huckabee was favored 49 percent to 44 percent in the same matchup. The two former governors were the only Republicans leading the incumbent president in a survey of 800 likely voters taken between April 4 and April 7 by Washington-based Mason-Dixon Polling and Research. The random telephone survey, which had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points was completed the day before Obama and Congress announced their compromise on the federal budget.