Mitt Romney says he's 'almost there' after Illinois

CHICAGO — Mitt Romney swept to victory in the Illinois Republican primary on Tuesday, using the full force of his campaign and an argument that he has the best chance of defeating President Obama to overcome doubts among the more conservative voters at the heart of his party.


Tonight's win means we are that much closer to securing the nomination, uniting our party, and taking on President Obama," the Republican front-runner wrote in a campaign email sent late Tuesday.


He urged the party to fall in line behind his bid, saying, "We are almost there."


The former Massachusetts governor and his allies spent hundreds of thousands of dollars more than Santorum and his backers in Illinois, and it showed in the results: Romney was beating Santorum by 47 percent to 35 percent.


As Mr. Romney addressed supporters in a hotel ballroom in the Chicago suburb of Schaumburg, he congratulated his rivals and immediately turned his focus to the president. He belittled Mr. Obama’s experience as a constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago and as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago, saying the president was ill suited to lead the nation to economic prosperity.


“It’s time to say this word: enough. We’ve had enough,” he said. “We know our future’s brighter than these troubled times. We still believe in America, and we deserve a president who believes in us, and I believe in the American people.”


Illinois is the third state in the industrial Midwest that Mr. Romney has carried in the last month. The electorate, particularly in the suburbs of Chicago, where he overwhelmed Mr. Santorum, was also reflective of relatively moderate states that will vote across the Northeast in April.


Surveys of Illinois Republicans leaving polling places showed that Mr. Romney not only won among the groups that usually support him — moderates, college graduates and wealthier voters — but also was competitive among Mr. Santorum’s generally more loyal coalition of Tea Party supporters and married women.


Mr. Santorum, who had been badly outspent by Mr. Romney and his supportive “super PAC” on television here, was winning in the rural and western portions of the state, a point he emphasized as he spoke to his supporters Tuesday night in his home state of Pennsylvania, a must-win for him on April 24.