Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney talks to reporters on his campaign plane before taking off for Boston, Tuesday, March 6, 2012, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney talks to reporters on his campaign plane before taking off for Boston, Tuesday, March 6, 2012, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Republican presidential candidate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum speaks at the American Legion, Monday, March 5, 2012, in Westerville, Ohio. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
President Barack Obama points toward a reporter during a news conference in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, March 6, 2012. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, appearing via satellite, speaks before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), in Washington, Tuesday, March 6, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, checks his watch as he tours the manufacturing facility at Quest Aircraft Company, Monday, March 5, 2012, in Sandpoint, Idaho. (AP Photo/Matt Mills McKnight)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? The marathon race at a crossroads, Mitt Romney and his Republican rivals battled coast-to-coast in a Super Tuesday showdown across 10 states for more than 400 delegates ? by far the busiest day of the campaign for the party's presidential nomination.
The man they hope to defeat in November, President Barack Obama, dismissed their almost-constant criticism of his foreign policy efforts. He accused Republicans of "beating the drums of war" and said, "Those folks don't have a lot of responsibilities. They're not commander in chief."
Ohio was the day's biggest prize in political significance, a heavily populated industrial state that tested Rick Santorum's ability to challenge Romney in a traditional fall battleground. Georgia, Newt Gingrich's home political field, outranked them all in the number of delegates at stake, with 76.
There were other primaries in Tennessee, Oklahoma, Vermont, Massachusetts, where Romney served one term as governor, and Virginia, where he shared the ballot with Ron Paul after neither Santorum nor Gingrich qualified. Caucuses in North Dakota, Idaho and Alaska rounded out the calendar.
Obama, unopposed for the Democratic nomination, stepped into the Republican race with a Super Tuesday news conference at the White House. Asked what he had to say to Romney in response to the Republican's harsh criticism, he responded with a big smile, "Good luck tonight."
The polls show the president's chances for re-election have improved in recent months, as the economy has strengthened, unemployment has slowly declined and Republicans have ripped into one another in the most tumultuous nominating campaign the party has endured since 1976.
No matter the winner on Tuesday, the day marked a key point as the race turned from one or two contests at a time into a sprawling near-nationwide competition for 419 delegates.
Romney led in the delegate hunt as polls opened. He had 203 in The Associated Press count, while Santorum had 92, Gingrich 33 and Paul 25. It takes 1,144 to win the nomination at the Republican National Convention this August in Tampa, Fla.
The former Massachusetts governor campaigned into Super Tuesday on a winning streak. He captured the Washington state caucuses last Saturday, days after winning a little-contested primary in Arizona and a hard-fought one in Michigan. He won the Maine caucuses earlier in February.
The victories helped settle his campaign, which was staggered when Santorum won a pair of caucuses and a non-binding Missouri primary on Feb. 7.
Santorum and Gingrich have vied for months to emerge as the sole conservative alternative to Romney, and they battered him as a moderate who would lead the party to defeat in November.
But Romney, backed by a heavily financed super PAC, countered Gingrich's victory in the South Carolina primary with a comeback win in Florida. Last week, it was Santorum's turn to fall, as Romney eked out a win in Michigan after trailing by double digits in some polls 10 days before the primary.
Santorum's recent rise has translated into campaign receipts of $9 million in February, his aides announced last week.
Even so, Romney and Restore our Future, the super PAC supporting him, outspent the other candidates and their supporters on television in the key Super Tuesday states.
In Ohio, Romney's campaign purchased about $1.5 million for television advertisements, and Restore Our Future spent $2.3 million. Santorum and Red, White and Blue, a super PAC that supports him, countered with about $1 million combined, according to information on file with the Federal Election Commission, a disadvantage of nearly four to one.
In Tennessee, where Romney did not purchase television time, Restore Our Future spent more than $1 million to help him. Santorum paid for a little over $225,000, and Winning our Future, a super PAC that backs Gingrich, nearly $470,000.
In Georgia, where Gingrich acknowledged he must win, the pro-Romney super PAC spent about $1.5 million in hopes of holding the former House speaker below 50 percent of the vote, the threshold needed to maximize his delegate take.
While the day boasted more primaries and caucuses than any other in 2012, it was a shadow of Super Tuesday in 2008, when there were 20 Republican contests.
There was another big difference, a trend away from winner-take-all contests to a system of allocating delegates in rough proportion to a candidate's share of the popular vote.
Sen. John McCain won eight states on Super Tuesday in 2008 and lost 12 to Romney and Mike Huckabee combined. But six of McCain's victories were winner-take-all primaries, allowing him to build an insurmountable delegate lead that all but sealed his nomination.
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