Romney in decisive nomination lead

Mitt Romney charged toward the Republican US presidential nomination last night, aiming for big victories in Wisconsin and two other contests that would increase the pressure on rival Rick Santorum to drop out of the race.

Romney was leading polls in Wisconsin, Maryland and Washington DC, the latest contests in the grinding, months-long battle for the right to face Democratic President Barack Obama in the Nov 6 election.

A sweep of all three would underscore Romney’s growing strength and likely increase appeals from party leaders for Republicans to rally behind him despite deep reservations among many right-wingers suspicious about his conservative credentials.

Winning all three contests would give Romney 95 more delegates and put him at well over half of the 1,144 needed to clinch the nomination at the party’s convention in August.

And it would set the tone for the next big date on the campaign calendar, Apr 24, when six states hold Republican presidential contests.

Romney leads in five of them and plans to make an aggressive push in the sixth, Santorum’s home state of Pennsylvania.

Although Romney has locked up support from much of the Republican party establishment, he has struggled to win over strict conservatives, many of whom favour Santorum.

Sarah Palin, the conservative former governor of Alaska and 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee, said the nominating process could still veer away from the front-runner.

“Anything is still possible, there can still be a bit of a shakeup,” she said on NBC’s Today programme.

Palin said that whoever becomes the nominee — Romney or one of his rivals — would get the support of the Republican base.

“He [Romney] will be able to do that,” she said. “If not Romney, if one of the other GOP candidates happen to surpass Romney in the delegate count… whomever will be able to coalesce, we will be able to coalesce around that nominee and make sure that voters understand they have a choice here.”

Wisconsin was the most closely watched race of the trio voting yesterday. Santorum, a conservative former US senator, campaigned heavily in the state and had led in the polls until ceding the lead to Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and private equity executive, in the last week or so.

Sensing the nomination is in sight, Romney has made no mention in recent days of Santorum or his other Republican rivals, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul.

Romney has instead pivoted to a general election campaign against Obama over the president’s handling of the US economy.

In an appearance on Fox television, Romney addressed concerns that Obama would fare better with women voters in a general election after a poll showed the president with a large advantage among women voters in swing states.

“You realise that under this president, the number of new business startups per year has dropped by 100,000,” Romney said.

“It has been a war on enterprise, a war on jobs, and it’s time for that to end if we’re going to get women back to having good jobs and rising incomes.”

While the economy has been showing signs of progress, Romney says high unemployment, high poverty and burdensome regulations remain serious challenges that prove Obama has been a failure.