TAMPA, Fla. — If there’s any Republican presidential candidate who can afford to spend precious time and money focusing on winning in Florida, it’s the one who campaigned in the state Tuesday.
Florida is the only early-primary state Mitt Romney plans to visit this week, little more than a month before voters start weighing in on the GOP nominating fight.
Depending on how he performs in earlier contests in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina — all three are still uncertain — Florida represents a chance for Mr. Romney to either seal the nomination or an opportunity to revive what likely would become, if he’s lost three times, a struggling campaign.
Mr. Romney spent all day in Florida, attending several fundraisers and holding public events in Miami and Tampa.
Unlike his rivals, he has the resources to compete aggressively here. He had nearly $15 million at the end of October and has spent little of it — a war chest that would allow him to buy expensive TV ads across Florida’s 10 media markets.
He has national name recognition from his 2008 bid, an asset his team thinks will give him a significant advantage over lesser-known rivals in a large state where retail politicking alone doesn’t cut it.
And he’s kept in good touch with the support and fundraising network he built last time around, an effort that’s shown through as he’s picked up endorsements from many of the state’s top Republicans, including former Sens. Mel Martinez and Connie Mack.
All that would also help him in the general election against President Obama, where Florida is a key battleground.
“They don’t want to see me as the nominee, that’s for sure,” Mr. Romney told reporters Tuesday. Democrats started running paid TV ads against him on Monday. “It shows that they’re awfully afraid of facing me in the general election.”
But Mr. Romney’s team also recognizes that losing Florida could doom his chances of winning the nomination — and Mr. Romney’s efforts here show that. He’s stayed on safe ground on Social Security, important to the state’s significant elderly population, while hammering rival Rick Perry, the governor of Texas, for calling the program a “Ponzi scheme.”
He’s also reached out to the Cuban-American community, a historically Republican constituency that plays a significant role in state politics. On Tuesday, Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart and his brother, former Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, all backed him at an event in Miami. Those three endorsed Sen. John McCain in 2008.
His campaign is also preparing an on-the-ground strategy, holding three weekly strategy calls with its Florida team.
Contrast that with most of his rivals, who have spent most of the primary campaign jockeying to become the consensus conservative alternative to the former Massachusetts governor — and probably need to win at least one earlier-than-Florida primary to stand a chance of surviving to compete here.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is spending the week in South Carolina and Iowa. Mr. Perry and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. are campaigning in New Hampshire. Former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota are in Iowa. Former corporate CEO Herman Cain is scheduled to make stops in Michigan and Ohio, though his campaign is now battling new accusations that he had an extramarital affair.
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