Mitt Romney Wins Florida Primary in a Landslide

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney established himself as the clear front-runner to take on President Barack Obama in November with a decisive win in Tuesdays Florida Republican presidential primary.

With 56 percent of the votes counted, Romney, who won 18 counties and took 31 percent of the vote in Florida when he ran for the Republican nomination in 2008, had 48 percent -- far ahead of his nearest rival, former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich who had 31 percent. Romney showed strength across the state, doing well all across Florida as he built solid leads in populous urban and suburban areas such as Duval, Hillsborough, Manatee, Martin, Miami-Dade, Orange, Pinellas, St. Johns, and Volusia counties.

This marks Romneys second victory in the battle for the Republican presidential nomination. Earlier in the month, he won the New Hampshire primary and narrowly lost the Iowa caucus to former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.

Gingrich, who won the South Carolina primary, won some of the counties in the northern part of the state including Baker, Clay, Dixie, Lafayette and Liberty counties.

Santorum placed third with 13 percent and U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas lagged with 7 percent. Santorum and Paul had seen the writing on the wall and abandoned the Sunshine State to focus on later contests. Both Santorum and Paul spent Tuesday night in Las Vegas while Romney based his election night activities in Tampa and Gingrich was in Orlando.

Around 2 million Florida Republicans hit the polls and more than 650,000 voted early or voted by absentee ballot.