Romney’s victories Tuesday in Wisconsin, Maryland and Washington, D.C., padded his already considerable delegate lead and all but handed him the title of presumptive Republican nominee.
Chief rival Rick Santorum vowed to fight on, defying growing pressure to abandon his own candidacy in the name of party unity.
Wisconsin was the marquee contest of the night, the only place of the three voting Tuesday where Santorum mounted a significant effort. Romney’s victory there marked his fourth in little more than a month in a belt of Midwestern industrial states that also included Michigan, Ohio, and Illinois.
The Republican front-runner was set Wednesday to take the same Washington stage that the president had used a day earlier to criticize Romney in a speech to newspaper editors in Washington. The former Massachusetts governor planned to address the Newspaper Association of America, a day after Obama spoke to the annual meeting of The Associated Press.
“There is a basic choice before us,” Romney said Tuesday night as he spoke to cheering supporters in Milwaukee. “Our different visions for America are the product of our values and our life experiences.” Romney didn’t mention Santorum on Tuesday night. Instead, Romney sought to cast Obama as an “out of touch” liberal whose personal background is hostile to a free economy.
His remarks came just hours after Obama delivered a combative campaign speech in Washington, where he attacked the budget plan approved last month by House Republicans as “thinly veiled social Darwinism” that “is antithetical to our entire history as a land of opportunity and upward mobility for everybody who’s willing to work for it.” Obama called it “a prescription for decline.” After his speech Wednesday, Romney planned to head to a campaign event in the Philadelphia suburbs. He was to campaign in Pennsylvania on Thursday, as well, hoping to deal a knockout blow to Santorum by winning the April 24 primary in the former US senator’s home state.
For Romney, the end of the contested primary campaign could hardly come soon enough. Obama has gained in the polls in recent months, particularly among women, as Republicans vie among themselves for support from the party’s increasingly conservative base. Santorum has devoted more time to social issues — including birth control — than Romney, who has generally stayed focused on economic issues.
Additionally, surveys indicate Americans are growing more optimistic about the overall state of the economy. Unemployment has fallen in recent months, but it is still at a relatively high 8.3 percent of the work force.
When he wasn’t focusing his rhetoric on Obama, Romney prodded Santorum to quit the race, suggesting a refusal to do so could cost the party the election in November.
“I want to have our nominee start raising money, start organizing a national campaign and focus on President Obama and his agenda because this is time for us to start focusing on him rather than standing and focusing on one another in these primary contests,” Romney told conservative radio host Sean Hannity on Tuesday.
Romney, who has cemented his lead over Santorum through overwhelming spending on television advertising, will face a better organized, better financed Obama campaign backed by the power of the presidency.
Already, the early outlines of a general election ad war are visible. Obama’s re-election campaign is airing commercials in a half-dozen battleground states that accuse Romney of siding with Big Oil “for their tax breaks, attacking higher mileage standards and renewables.” The ads are a rapid response to $3 million in commercials aired by an outside group, American Energy Alliance, blaming the president for rising gasoline prices.
Santorum took note of the calls for him to exit the race. He vowed to compete in the Pennsylvania primary in three weeks and in contests next month on more favorable terrain in Texas, Arkansas, and other southern states.
“Ladies and gentleman, Pennsylvania and half the other people in this country have yet to be heard, and we’re going to go out and campaign here and across this nation to make sure that their voices are heard in the next few months,” Santorum told supporters at a sparsely attended election night party outside Pittsburgh in his home state. He had three campaign events scheduled across Pennsylvania on Wednesday.
Santorum made little or no effort in Maryland, was not on the ballot in Washington, D.C., and concentrated much of his time in Wisconsin in rural areas.
Returns from 98 percent of Wisconsin’s precincts showed Romney with 43 percent of the vote to 38 percent for Santorum, 12 percent for Texas Rep. Ron Paul and 6 percent for Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House of Representatives.
Returns from 100 percent of Maryland’s precincts showed Romney with 49 percent of the vote to 29 percent for Santorum, 11 percent for Gingrich and 10 percent for Paul.
With all precincts counted in Washington, Romney had 70 percent of the vote to 12 percent for Paul and 11 percent for Gingrich. Santorum was not on the ballot.
Interviews with voters leaving Republican polling places in Maryland and Wisconsin showed an electorate more concerned with a candidate’s ability to ability to defeat Obama than with the strength of his conservatism, his moral character or his stand on the issues. Similar soundings in earlier states have consistently worked to Romney’s advantage.
The latest losses make it all but impossible for Santorum to secure enough delegates to block Romney’s nomination.
Romney won at least 83 delegates in Tuesday’s three races, with six delegates yet to be decided.
That pushed his total to 655 of the 1,144 delegates needed to clinch the nomination at the Republican National Convention in late August in Tampa, Florida. Santorum has 278 delegates, Gingrich 135 and Paul 51.
Romney has won 58 percent of the primary and caucus delegates so far. He is on pace to reach the number of delegates needed to clinch the nomination in early June. Santorum has won just 26 percent of the delegates so far. He would need 80 percent of the remaining delegates to clinch the nomination — a nearly impossible task because most states award delegates proportionally.
