Romney Wins Florida GOP Primary

Mitt Romney has won the Florida Republican preferential primary and claimed all of the Florida's delegates to the Republican National Convention. With 99.2% of the precincts reporting, the results were Romney 46.4%, Gingrich 31.9%, Santorum 13.4%, Paul 7.0% and Other 1.3%.

In his victory speech in Tampa, Romney focused on President Obama and his record on the economy. Romney said, "Leadership is about taking responsibility, not making excuses. Mr. President, you were elected to lead. You chose to follow. Now it's time for you to get out of the way."

Romney also focus on the upcoming Republican National Convention in Tampa in August. He said, "Democrats may believe that the primary campaign would leave Republicans divided and weak. A competitive primary does not divide us. It prepares us. And when we gather here in Tampa seven months from now for our convention, ours will be a united party with a winning ticket for America."

Newt Gingrich identified that he intended to compete in all future races. "It is now clear that this will be a two-person race between the conservative leader Newt Gingrich and the Massachusetts moderate. We are going to contest every place and we are going to win."

While Romney did not discount Rick Santorum and Ron Paul in future debates and contest, it was evident that Gingrich has done so. But proclaiming something does not make it so. While both Romney and Gingrich spend millions on ads, Santorum and Paul did not waste their money with Florida being a winner take all delegates state. Both came shared their messaging and then focused on the next state to vote, Nevada.

Santorum responded to Gingrich's claim and said that he is the conservative alternative to Romney because he has less "personal baggage" than Gingrich. As for Ron Paul, he held a rally which sounded more like a victory celebration and detailed his consistent message of limited government and less intrusion on both American lives and into "foreign entanglements." Paul said voters should "Send only people to the White House who know and read the Constitution and enforce the Constitution."

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