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Sen. John McCain won a breakthrough triumph in the
Florida Republican primary Tuesday night, edging past former
Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and seizing precious campaign
momentum for next week's string of contests across 21 states.
     

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani was running third, and
headed for the exits. Officials familiar with events said his aides
were in discussions with McCain's advisers on a possible
endorsement later in the week.


Mike Huckabee was running fourth, and pledged to campaign on.
Texas Rep. Ron Paul was far behind in last place.


Returns from 62 percent of the state's precincts showed McCain,
the Arizona senator, with 36 percent of the vote and Romney, the
former governor of Massachusetts, with 31 percent.


McCain's victory was his first-ever primary win in a state that
allowed only Republicans to vote. His previous victories, in New
Hampshire and South Carolina this year, and in two states in 2000
came in elections open to independents. He campaigned with the
support of the state's two top Republican elected officials, Gov.
Charlie Crist and Sen. Mel Martinez.


Romney's only primary win so far was in Michigan, a state where
he grew up and claimed a home-field advantage. He also has caucus
victories to his credit in Wyoming and Nevada.


A survey of voters as they left their polling places showed the
economy was the top issue for nearly half the Republican
electorate. McCain led his rival among those voters, blunting
Romney's weeklong effort to persuade Floridians that his background
as a businessman made him best-suited for heading off a recession.


McCain also was benefiting from the support of self-described
moderates, as well as older voters and Hispanics. Giuliani ran
second among Latino voters, according to preliminary exit poll
data.


Romney was favored by voters opposed to abortion and to easing
the path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.


About 40 percent of self-described conservatives supported him,
as well, compared to about 25 percent for McCain.


The poll was conducted by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky
International for The Associated Press and the television networks.


Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton won the Democratic race, an event
that drew no campaigning by any of the contenders - and awarded no
delegates to the winner.

The Democratic primary was controversial by its very existence,
an act of defiance against national party officials who wanted it
held later in the year.

Even so, Clinton sought to emphasize her performance in the
state, holding a rally as the polls were closing.

She challenged Barack Obama to agree to seat the delegates on
the basis of the night's vote, but he demurred, saying he would
abide by an agreement all Democratic candidates had made months
ago.

"Those decisions will be made after the nomination, not
before," Obama told reporters Tuesday on a plane from Washington
to Kansas. "Obviously, I care a lot about the people in Michigan
and a lot about the people in Florida. And I want their votes in
the general election. We'll be actively campaigning for them."

Romney began the evening with 59 Republican delegates, to 36 for
McCain and 40 for Huckabee. Giuliani had one.

No matter the winner, there was no time to rest. There are 21
GOP contests on the ballot on Feb. 5, with 1,023 delegates at
stake.

McCain and Romney clashed early and often, in personal
appearances and paid television advertising, in a bruising week of
campaigning in Florida.

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, said his career as a
private businessman made him perfectly suited to sit in the Oval
Office with a recession looming. Sen. McCain argued he knew his
economics well enough, and that his career in the military and in
Congress made him the man to steer the country in an age of
terrorism.

By the campaign's final hours, the two men hurled insults at one
another, each saying the other hoped to travel a liberal road to
the presidential nomination in a party of conservatives.

Romney attacked McCain for his signature legislation to reduce
the role of money in politics, for his position on immigration and
for his support of an energy bill that he said would have driven up
consumer costs.

"If you ask people, 'look at the three things Senator McCain
has done as a senator,' if you want that kind of a liberal Democrat
course as president, then you can vote for him," Romney told
campaign workers. "But those three pieces of legislation, those
aren't conservative, those aren't Republican, those are not the
kind of leadership that we need as we go forward."

McCain had a ready reply. "On every one of the issues he has
attacked us on, Mitt Romney was for it before he was against it,"
he said. "The truth is, Mitt Romney was a liberal governor of
Massachusetts who raised taxes, imposed with Ted Kennedy a big
government mandate health care plan that is now a quarter of a
billion dollars in the red, and managed his state's economy
incompetently, leaving Massachusetts with less job growth than 46
other states."

McCain aired radio commercials criticizing Romney, and his
campaign Web site has an ad superimposing Romney's face on the
image of a windsurfing Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic
presidential nominee.

The Romney campaign also reported numerous negative phone calls,
accusing him incorrectly of supporting taxpayer-funded abortions,
opposing President Bush's tax cuts and favoring direct talks with
Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

      The McCain campaign said it was not responsible for the calls.

Gallery

Politics and Government News

Sen. John McCain won a breakthrough triumph in the
Florida Republican primary Tuesday night, edging past former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and seizing precious campaign momentum for next week's string of contests across 21 states.

McCain beats Romney in tight Florida primary

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