photo by Gage Skidmore

BRADENTON – Mitt Romney won the Wisconsin, District of Columbia and Maryland Republican presidential primaries on Tuesday, dealing a hard blow to the fading campaign of Rick Santorum, who had campaigned hard for a victory in Wisconsin that he hoped could persuade Republicans that he still held a clear path to the nomination.

Romney won decisively in Maryland and D.C. (Santorum was not on the ballot in the nation's capital) and was able to pull out Wisconsin, a state where Republicans are notoriously conservative and that also has a strong Tea Party faction. The wins continue to push Romney closer toward a mathematical victory, though he likely will not hit the magic number of 1,144 before California Republicans go to the polls on June 6.

In recent weeks, a flurry of Republican power brokers circled their wagons for Romney. Florida Senator Marco Rubio, George H.W. Bush and Jeb Bush all endorsed the former Massachusetts governor and urged members of their party to rally around the man they felt was the inevitable candidate so that he could focus on defeating President Obama in November.

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