Romney Likely To Build Lead In 10 State Contests

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans in 10 U.S. states will vote in the so-called “Super Tuesday” balloting that could be decisive in the battle between front-running candidates Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum for the nomination to challenge President Barack Obama in November.

New polling showed Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and venture capitalist, pulling even with Santorum in the all important primary in Ohio, a state where voters have an uncanny history of picking winners in presidential politics. Romney already has a big lead in the number of delegates accumulated in primary and causes held so far.

Romney already has a big lead in the number of delegates and Super Tuesday could be the multi-millionaire’s best chance yet to finally establish himself as the inevitable nominee.

Third-place Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, will be trying to reinvigorate his once poll-topping campaign with a victory in Georgia, the state he represented in Congress for two decades. Texas Rep. Ron Paul, meanwhile, was focusing on the three states that hold caucus meetings that are more easily controlled by highly motivated minorities like those backing the small-government, low-tax candidate.

Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, is going all out in Ohio in an effort to regain the momentum that slipped away in his loss to Romney in Michigan last week. He had held a sizable lead in Ohio but Romney has closed that gap.

Obama, meanwhile, is seeing his poll numbers rise in tandem with signs that the struggling U.S. economy may finally be on a course toward sustained recovery. A new poll released Monday shows him defeating all of the Republican candidates in hypothetical head-to-head matchup.

He also has been help considerably by the Republicans having been driven badly off their economic message by a detour into a rancorous and nasty debate over whether religious institutions — not churches — should be required offer health insurance coverage for contraceptives.

An uproar, mostly among Catholic leaders who reject contraception on moral grounds, forced Obama to change the birth control mandate. The new plan would require insurance companies that cover workers in religious organizations — and not the religious organizations themselves — to offer the coverage.

Just as the contentious issue started to fade a bit, Rush Limbaugh, a conservative radio personality, forced it front and center once again: The issue has only grown more contentious after he apologized for calling a Georgetown University law student who had spoken out in favor of the Obama plan a “slut” and a “prostitute” who wanted the government to pay her for having sex.

And the issue seemed certain to deepen the concerns of many women voters, who — along with the broad spectrum of all independents — will likely determine the ultimate outcome in November. Polls show women are already turning back to Obama.

Romney and Santorum, meanwhile were fighting it out for every single vote in Ohio.

Speaking to supporters at a guardrail factory in the industrial city of Canton, Romney tried to snap the subject back to the economy and away from social conservative issues.

“I look at this campaign right now and I see a lot of folks all talking about lots of things, but what we need to talk about to defeat Barack Obama is getting good jobs and scaling back the size of government, and that’s what I do,” Romney said. “Other people in this race have debated about the economy, they’ve read about the economy, they’ve talked about it in subcommittee meetings. But I’ve actually been in it.”

Santorum told Ohioans the election must be earned, not “bought,” in another swipe at Romney’s wealth and superior campaign machine. “Look into what the candidates have overcome and what they offer to this country — not just what money they have, but where’s the soul, where’s the conviction, where’s the fight?” he told hundreds of students and supporters at Dayton Christian School.

Fully one-third of the 1,144 delegates needed to clinch the nomination are at stake Tuesday, a larger prize than all the previous primaries and caucuses combined. The nominee will be named in late August at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida.

Obama picked Tuesday for his first news conference of the year, a chance to steal a bit of thunder from the Republicans on their big day and defend a record of economic stewardship that is under daily assault in the Republican campaign.

On the eve of Super Tuesday, the message coming from Republican establishment figures was clear: It’s time, if not past time, to crystallize the competition and unite the party behind the effort to defeat Obama in the fall.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Sen. Tom Coburn, one of the most conservative members of the Senate, were among the latest Republican luminaries to swing behind Romney. Conservative John Ashcroft, attorney general in the George W. Bush administration and a former Missouri senator, threw his support behind Romney on Monday.

Romney has won four consecutive contests, including Saturday’s Washington state caucuses. His broad, well-disciplined organization all but assures he’ll collect more delegates than his opponents on Tuesday. Santorum and Gingrich did not collect enough signatures to qualify for the Virginia ballot, for example, and Santorum cannot win 18 of Ohio’s 66 delegates for similar reasons.

So far, Romney leads with 203 delegates from previous contests, Santorum has 92, Gingrich has 33 and Paul, 25.