HispanicBusiness

In a victory that all but ends a drawn-out, topsy-turvy fight for the Republican nomination, Mitt Romney defeated Rick Santorum in the Wisconsin presidential primary Tuesday, a day that marked the de facto start of a fierce general election fight with Democratic President Obama.

"We have won a great victory tonight in our campaign to restore the promise of America," said Romney, whose victory speech from the Grain Exchange Room in Milwaukee was devoted entirely to positioning himself as the party's standard-bearer and making his case against the sitting president.

The president also fueled that general election storyline, making a blistering speech in Washington to news editors that criticized Romney by name and assailed the House budget plan endorsed by Romney and drafted by Congressman Paul Ryan of Janesville.

Romney's victories in Wisconsin, Maryland and Washington, D.C., help him in his mathematical march toward the nomination after winning the vast majority of the 95 delegates in play Tuesday. And they leave his chief opponent with a shrinking rationale for fighting on. Wisconsin was widely regarded within the party as Santo rum's last true shot to shake up the race by defeating Romney on an even playing field and in a major election battleground.

"I think Romney just made himself the prohibitive front-runner tonight," said Ryan, the House budget chair, in an interview with the Journal Sentinel on Tuesday night.

"I don't think (Santorum) is viable anymore," said Ryan, who endorsed Romney last Friday, campaigned continuously with him the past five days and introduced him at the victory party Tuesday night.

The next GOP contests aren't until April 24, and the only state that appears winnable for Santorum that day is his home state of Pennsylvania, where Santorum spent Tuesday night and planned to campaign Wednesday.

"Pennsylvania and half the other people in this country have yet to be heard, and we're going to go out and campaign here and across this nation to make sure their votes are heard in the next few months," Santorum said Tuesday night.

The pressure building with the party to end a divisive and damaging intramural fight now becomes immense, with GOP leaders hungry to unify Republicans and turn toward the challenging task of unseating a well-financed and well-organized incumbent.

"People are tired," Senate candidate and former governor Tommy Thompson said a few days before the primary. "People want it over. Enough's enough."

There may be a feeling in the party that "Romney's not everything everybody wants," said Thompson, who did not endorse anyone, but "everybody is convinced in their minds that Romney has got the best shot against Obama, so let's get it on."

Santorum delegates

Exit polls showed that 8 in 10 primary voters expect Romney to be the nominee. They also showed Romney performing better with the kinds of voters who have given him trouble all year.

Romney won 43% of "very conservative" voters, matching Santorum among a group he has repeatedly lost in competitive states. He only lost white evangelicals by four points, after losing them in state after state by double digits. He won voters without college degrees, after losing these voters in numerous other primaries.

Romney beat Santorum by large margins in the GOP suburbs in southeastern Wisconsin that play an outsize role in Republican elections. Santorum won much of northern and western Wisconsin, assuring himself of a piece of the state's delegate haul. He won rural voters, but rural voters were a smaller part of the electorate than they were in the 2008 GOP primary, according to exit polls.