ORLANDO, Fla. (MCT) — Mitt Romney opened a commanding lead in Florida Sunday, driving his rivals to start shifting their sights to other states as more suitable battlegrounds to keep challenging him for the Republican presidential nomination.
Three new polls showed the former Massachusetts governor seizing a double-digit lead over his nearest competitor, former House speaker Newt Gingrich, in Florida, where voting will end on Tuesday.
Rep. Ron Paul of Texas and former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania trailed far behind, with little hope of victory in a state where the winner will take all 50 delegates, and the rest will get nothing.
Gingrich planned to barnstorm the state by air Monday in a primary-eve push to close the gap. But he also looked past the likely loss on Tuesday, insisting that the anti-Romney vote eventually will coalesce around him. “We will go all the way to the convention,” he said Sunday.
Santorum, who suspended campaigning to be at the hospital bedside of his 3-year-old daughter, sent surrogates to Florida. He looked ahead to the next contest on Feb. 4 in Nevada. His campaign is opening an office in Las Vegas.
And Paul, who already abandoned Florida, wrapped up two days of campaigning in Maine, which also holds caucuses on Feb. 4. “I think that’s a real good place for us to break through,” he said Sunday.
Romney opened his big lead in Florida as Gingrich’s bounce off a win in South Carolina evaporated.
Romney led Gingrich by 42 to 27 percent in a new NBC-Marist poll, one of three polls with similar margins. Santorum had 16 percent and Paul had 11 percent.
“Mitt Romney has shored up support among his key backers while cutting his losses among Tea Party voters,” said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. “The net effect is that he is in the driver’s seat as Tuesday’s primary approaches.”
