By Simon Mann
WASHINGTON: Challengers to Mitt Romney's seemingly unstoppable march to the Republican Party's presidential nomination were busy campaigning in the next states on the primary calendar as Mr Romney sailed to an easy win in Nevada's weekend caucuses.
Texas congressman Ron Paul was already in Minnesota, while the former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum was talking up his prospects in Colorado. Both states vote tomorrow.
Nevada runner-up Newt Gingrich was also looking ahead, revealing plans to tour Ohio, one of 10 states voting on Super Tuesday in early March, that Mr Gingrich hopes will breathe life into his campaign.
Mr Romney, who won Nevada in the 2008 nomination race with the help of its big Mormon population, cantered to victory this time with 43 per cent of the vote, backing up last week's Florida triumph.
Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney in Nevada.Credit: Getty Images/AFP
With the bulk of precincts counted, Mr Gingrich scored 26 per cent, followed by Dr Paul (18 per cent) and Mr Santorum (13), with Nevada apportioning its delegates to the party's August convention accordingly. The win took the former Massachusetts governor's tally to 95 - 65 ahead of Mr Gingrich, who has signalled a challenge to Florida's decision to allot all 50 of its delegates to Mr Romney in defiance of Republican rules.
Even so, the race is expected to be well over by August, rendering the challenge obsolete. A candidate needs 1144 delegates to clinch the nomination.
Nevada - where unemployment tops the country at nearly 13 per cent and house prices have halved since 2007 - looms as one of several swing states in November's presidential election, with Barack Obama's re-election chances likely resting on a pick-up in the economy.
Job figures issued on Friday were better than expected and brought the national jobless rate down to 8.3 per cent. They lifted Democrat hopes and helped send the sharemarket to its highest point since the 2008 global financial meltdown. But in his victory speech in Las Vegas, Mr Romney told supporters that he was the only candidate who could fix the President's economic failures.