MIAMI, Feb 2: Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney warned on Wednesday that the White House contest in November would be one of the most vitriolic and spiteful in US history.

He was speaking after his bitterly-fought victory in the Florida primary, in particular over the former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who suffered a multi-million dollar negative advertising blitz by the Romney camp.

“No question that Barack Obama’s billion-dollar machine will organise the most vitriolic, spiteful campaign in American history,” Romney told ABC. “We have to be ready for that.”

The Democratic party called for donations to counter the hundreds of millions of dollars they say the eventual Republican nominee will have at his disposal and Obama’s campaign team predicted that the president would be subjected to a “smear campaign”.

Although Romney won Florida and re-established himself as front-runner, he failed to knock out Gingrich or the other two remaining candidates in the four opening contests that began in Iowa on Jan 3. He now faces six costly and gruelling contests in February, and 10 on Super Tuesday on March 6, including one of the biggest, Texas. The candidates are now braced to fight on even beyond Super Tuesday. Gingrich, defiant in his post-election speech in Orlando on Tuesday night, emphasised that only four states had been contested so far. “Forty-six to go,” he said.

It is now all about accumulating a majority of the 2,286 delegates to the Republican convention in Tampa in August, where the candidate will be nominated to take on Obama in November. Romney has 87 delegates so far, Gingrich 26, former senator Rick Santorum 14 and Texas congressman Ron Paul 4.

Romney took 46.4 per cent of the vote in Florida; Gingrich 31.9 per cent, Santorum 13.4 per cent and Paul 7 per cent.

Turn-out was down on the 2008 Republican race, from 1.9 million to 1.6 million, reflecting voters’ unhappiness with the candidates on offer.

Romney, in a round of television interviews celebrating his Florida win, said he had learned from his defeat 10 days earlier in South Carolina. “When things get tough you put your head down, you work very hard,” he told ABC. The tough Republican battle would harden him for the campaign against Obama. In a sign of his increasing stature and bigger crowds, he was given a secret service security detail.

Democrats, having watched the Republican candidates ripping into one another over the last month, are anticipating Obama will be subjected to a poisonous campaign backed by hundreds of millions of dollars.

Obama received a relatively easy ride in 2008 from John McCain, who resisted advice to use negative material.

Obama’s campaign manager, Jim Messina, warned supporters in an email about the spending power of the Republicans:

“They’re going to try to spend and smear their way to the White House.”

Some Republicans are concerned that personal exchanges between Romney and Gingrich are hurting the party’s chances against Obama in November. Others argue all publicity is good and the eventual winner will be hardened for facing Obama.

Matthew Corrigan, a professor of politics at the University of North Florida, said: “If Gingrich can survive February, Super Tuesday allows him to get back to the south. It is a long way away but if he is still functioning ... he will be a force.”As a southerner, Gingrich stands a chance of wins in Texas, Georgia — his home state — and Tennessee. He could also emerge ahead on the delegate count.

By arrangement with the Guardian