Romney leads in race to take on Obama as rival throws in towel

The news came after five state primaries further cemented his hold on the nomination and he immediately told voters he would save them from four more years of what he called President Barack Obama’s “false promises and weak leadership.”

Mr Gingrich all but conceded his campaign was over saying he expects Mr Romney will be the Republican nominee and calling on the party to unite behind him.

Mr Romney emerged from months of a brutal Republican nominating campaign, reaffirming his determination to hammer Mr Obama over his handling of the US economic recovery from the steepest downturn since the 1930s Great Depression.

“As I look around at the millions of Americans without work, the graduates who can’t get a job, the soldiers who return home to an unemployment line, it breaks my heart,” Mr Romney said in a victory speech from New Hampshire, where he scored his first primary victory early this year. “This does not have to be. It is the result of failed leadership and of a faulty vision.”

Mr Romney, having shed his closest Republican rival when Rick Santorum left the race this month, is focused on the still-weak economy, the foremost issue among voters and one that polls show Americans believe Mr Romney is better equipped to handle.

Nevertheless, polling shows Mr Obama with a far higher popularity rating and leads in the dozen states expected to be decisive battlegrounds on the election day, November 6.

Mr Romney won primary victories in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, Pennsylvania and New York in the first contests since Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, suspended his campaign.

He must now convince independent voters he is the best man to take over the White House. Mr Obama won the presidency in 2008 in the midst of the worst economic downturn to hit the United States in seven decades. Since then, recovery has been slow, while housing prices have continued to drop in many areas.

Mr Obama has a head start in organising, fundraising and other elements of the campaign.

Already, he and aides are working to depict Mr Romney and Republicans as pursuing new tax breaks for the wealthy while seeking to cut programs that benefit millions of lower-income Americans.