Republican Presidential Candidate, 2012 Republican Presidential Candidate | featured news

A Paul third-party candidacy would, barring some sort of unforeseen dynamic, likely hand President Obama a second term. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and his campaign team understand the power that Paul could wield and have gone out of their way to befriend him — and avoid alienating his supporters.

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich says he's being realistic when he says Mitt Romney is "far and away the most likely" GOP nominee, but Gingrich isn't ready to drop out.

Mitt Romney is starting to hone his appeal to women voters, acutely aware as he turns to the general election that he has little choice but to narrow President Barack Obama's commanding lead among this critical constituency.

At 7 p.m. on Thursday, in the back shed of a firehouse, a presidential candidate who continually concedes he's unlikely to capture the Republican nomination held a rally - and 350 people showed up. Earlier, Newt Gingrich spoke to more than 150 people in nearby Magnolia. And a day earlier, he greeted a sold-out auditorium that seats more than 400 at the University of North Carolina-Wilmington.

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum, in what may be a grim development for his campaign, has lost the lead in his home state of Pennsylvania to front-runner Mitt Romney, according to a poll released on Thursday.

The Rick Santorum campaign is formally calling on Newt Gingrich to drop out of the race and endorse the former Pennsylvania senator, following Tuesday night's three-primary sweep by Mitt Romney. Santorum's communications director Hogan Gidley made the statement during a Wednesday appearance on MSNBC.

Polls are open in Maryland, the District and Wisconsin, where Tuesday’s Republican primaries could move Mitt Romney closer to a nomination that has hovered just out of his reach. Romney is favored to win in all three jurisdictions: the closest race appears to be in Wisconsin, where recent polls have shown him with a single-digit lead over former Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.)

The former Pa. senator leads among likely GOP voters back home, but nearly 4 in 10 could change their minds before the April 24 primary.

To watch Mitt Romney campaign across Wisconsin the past few days has been to wonder whether the Republican primary is still going on.

A Rick Santorum TV ad morphs an image of Obama into Romney, making the point that there are no policy differences between the two.