Mitt Romney has clinched the Republican presidential nomination with a win in the Texas primary, a triumph of endurance for a candidate who came up short four years ago and had to fight hard this year as voters flirted with a carousel of GOP rivals.
According to the Associated Press count, Romney surpassed the 1144 delegates needed to win the nomination by winning at least 88 delegates in the Texas primary.
The former Massachusetts governor has reached the nomination milestone with a steady message of concern about the US economy, a campaign organiation that dwarfed those of his GOP foes and a fundraising operation second only to that of his Democratic opponent in the general election, President Barack Obama.
"I am honoured that Americans across the country have given their support to my candidacy and I am humbled to have won enough delegates to become the Republican Party's 2012 presidential nominee," Romney said in a statement.
"Our party has come together with the goal of putting the failures of the last three and a half years behind us," Romney said. "I have no illusions about the difficulties of the task before us. But whatever challenges lie ahead, we will settle for nothing less than getting America back on the path to full employment and prosperity."
Romney must now fire up conservatives who still doubt him while persuading swing voters that he can do a better job fixing the nation's struggling economy than Obama. In Obama, he faces a well-funded candidate with a proven campaign team in an election that will be heavily influenced by the economy.
"It's these economic indicators that will more or less trump any good or bad that Romney potentially got out of primary season," said Josh Putnam, an assistant political science professor at Davidson College who writes the political blog Frontloading HQ.
Romney spent the evening at a Las Vegas fundraiser with Donald Trump, who has been renewing discredited suggestions that Obama wasn't born in the United States. Romney says he believes Obama was born in America but has yet to condemn Trump's repeated insinuations to the contrary.
"If Mitt Romney lacks the backbone to stand up to a charlatan like Donald Trump because he's so concerned about lining his campaign's pockets, what does that say about the kind of president he would be?" Obama's deputy campaign manager, Stephanie Cutter, said in a statement.
Asked Monday about Trump's contentions, Romney said: "I don't agree with all the people who support me. And my guess is they don't all agree with everything I believe in." He added: "But I need to get 50.1 percent or more. And I'm appreciative to have the help of a lot of good people."
Trump told CNN in an interview Tuesday that he and Romney talk about other issues — jobs, China, oil and more — and not about the place of Obama's birth or the validity of his birth certificate. Asked how he viewed Romney's position that the president was indeed born in the US, Trump said: "He's entitled to his opinion, and I think that's wonderful. I don't happen to share that opinion and that's wonderful also."
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