Republican challengers look ahead to Florida

After a bruising clash in South Carolina, Republican presidential frontrunners Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich took their battle to a bigger stage when the campaign moved to Florida yesterday.

Gingrich, a former US House of Representatives speaker, thrashed Romney in the South Carolina primary on Saturday, suggesting the race for their party’s nomination and the right to face President Barack Obama in November may last months more.

The largest of the early voting states by far, Florida presents logistical and financial challenges that appear to give an advantage to Romney’s well-funded campaign machine.

But Gingrich has momentum after coming from behind in South Carolina to win around 40% of the vote, followed by Romney with 28%. Rick Santorum, a former senator, was in third with 17% and congressman Ron Paul in fourth with 13%.

“We proved here in South Carolina that people... with the right ideas beats big money,” Gingrich told supporters after his victory in the conservative state.

After strong performances in a series of debates, Gingrich was seen by South Carolina voters as the most likely Republican to beat Obama, a Democrat, in the Nov 6 election.

They also rejected millionaire former businessman Romney’s pitch that he is the best bet to fix a broken US economy and win the White House.

Romney and Gingrich, who have attacked each other mercilessly in a series of negative television ads since December, face off in a debate in Tampa, Florida, tonight.

Romney has stumbled over questions about his personal finances in recent debates and acknowledged last week that he only pays a 15% tax rate, much lower than that of most working Americans.

The former Massachusetts governor has so far resisted calls from rivals to release his tax returns but said yesterday that he will release tax returns for the last two years this week and admitted the flap over his returns hurt him in South Carolina.

“I will release my tax returns for 2010, which is the last returns which were completed, on Tuesday of this week,” Romney said on Fox News on Sunday. “And I will also release at the same time an estimate for 2011 tax returns.”

“We made a mistake holding off as long as we did and it just was a distraction,” the former Massachusetts governor added.

That is part of a strategy to be more aggressive against Gingrich, a formidable debater who nevertheless has personal and professional baggage that the Romney team could exploit. Romney accuses Gingrich of being a Washington insider.

“The choice within our party has also come into stark focus. President Obama has no experience running a business and no experience running a state. Our party can’t be lead to victory by someone who also has never run a business and never run a state,” Romney said on Saturday.

Romney saw his aura of inevitability erode in South Carolina after leading polls by 10% a week ago.

In Florida, he leads Gingrich by 40.5% to 22%, according to a poll of polls by RealClearPolitics.com. Santorum, a social conservative from Pennsylvania, is third with 15%.