Romney Rolls in Illinois

4 Straight: Romney Wins Washington GOP Caucus

Mitt Romney rolled to a double-digit victory in Washington state’s Republican presidential caucuses Saturday night, his fourth campaign triumph in a row and a fresh show of strength in the run-up to 10 Super Tuesday contests in all regions of the country.

Rick Santorum and Ron Paul battled for second place, while Newt Gingrich ran a distant fourth. […]

Romney is the aggressor in final Florida debate

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — An aggressive Mitt Romney repeatedly challenged Republican rival Newt Gingrich Thursday night in the final debate before next week’s critical Florida primary, demanding an apology for an ad saying he harbors anti-immigrant sentiments and ridiculing the former House speaker’s call to colonize the moon.

“If I had a business executive come to me and say I want to spend a few hundred billion dollars to put a colony on the moon, I’d say, ‘You’re fired,’” Romney declared. That was just one particularly animated clash between two rivals struggling for supremacy in the race to pick an opponent to President Barack Obama in the fall.

Gingrich responded heatedly. “You don’t just have to be cheap everywhere. You can actually have priorities to get things done.” He said that as speaker of the House he had helped balance the budget while doubling spending on the National Institutes of health.

The debate was the 19th since the race for the Republican nomination began last year, and the second in four days in the run-up to Tuesday’s Florida primary. Opinion polls make the race a close one — slight advantage Romney — with two other contenders, former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Texas Rep. Ron Paul far behind. […]

Romney wins by 8 votes