HispanicBusiness

The battle to secure the Republican presidential nomination moved Saturday to the Gulf Coast state of Louisiana, where the conservative party's voters were deciding which candidate they want to face incumbent Barack Obama.

Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, 53, hopes to consolidate his base in the Southern states with another win in the region, and opinion polls give him a 13 per cent lead over rival Mitt Romney. States in the South have so far been more receptive to Santorum's socially conservative views.

Results will be available after polls close at 0100 GMT Sunday.

The Republican establishment has begun to coalesce around front-runner Romney, 65, as the likely nominee, but the fight for the nomination has dragged on as Santorum, along with former speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich, 68, have each claimed to be the true conservative in the race and vowed to campaign until the party's presidential nominating convention in September.

Romney secured a big victory Tuesday in Obama's home state of Illinois, and gained an endorsement this week from former Florida governor Jeb Bush, a popular heir of the political family that has produced two of the last four presidents.

Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, continues to be dogged by concerns that he has frequently changed his positions on issues such as government-led health care and abortion rights. His rivals argue that he is too moderate for the party's conservative base.

The concerns were reignited this week by a reference to the children's drawing toy known as an Etch-A-Sketch, with which a simple shake can clean the slate.

Romney's rivals have gleefully held up the toys on the campaign trail this week to tweak his reputation for reinvention, after remarks by a Romney aide compared resetting the campaign for the general election to starting over by shaking an Etch-A-Sketch.

Romney now has 563 of the 1,144 delegates needed to win the nomination, according to a tally by the Washington Post. Santorum trails with 263 delegates, with Gingrich at 135 and Texas Congressman Ron Paul at 50.

Romney appears to be making gradual progress in his struggle to win over the party's conservative base. Illinois exit polls on Tuesday showed him winning a plurality of 43 per cent among voters supporting the tea party -- the small-government, anti-Obama movement that fueled Republican gains in the 2010 congressional elections.

Next week, voters in the District of Columbia, home to the federal government, and in Maryland, Texas and Wisconsin will weigh in on the Republicans' presidential nomination. Presidential elections are November 4.