It might be increasingly tough to stop him, even though Romney has a financial advantage. A late blitz of commercials by McCain enabled the senator to achieve parity on the Florida airwaves in the closing days of the race, something he'll have to depend largely on news coverage to accomplish between now and Tuesday.
McCain leads in the national polls and in many of the states that vote next week. His Florida victory should only magnify his advantage.
Tonight, the Republican candidates will meet in a final, pre-Super Tuesday debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, north of Los Angeles.
McCain "comes into California on a rocket ship," said Dan Schnur, a Republican strategist in California who worked for McCain eight years ago but is neutral this time.
"A win in Florida doesn't necessarily guarantee the nomination, but it gives him a huge advantage going into the Super Tuesday states," Schnur said. "It's going to take an awful lot of paid advertising [by Romney] to make up the difference."
Even as McCain moved closer to a prize that eluded him eight years ago, his party remains sharply divided, and many of its core voters are cool - if not hostile - to his candidacy.
Among the clear majority of Republicans who described themselves as conservatives - three in every five voters - Romney defeated McCain by a margin of 40 percent to 27 percent, according to an Election Day survey of voters as they left Florida polling places.
In his speech last night, McCain sought to reassure them, by aligning himself with Reagan and the party's conservative ideology.
McCain succeeded in countering Romney's effort to make the Florida election about managing the economy. The issue seemed to be tailored for Romney, who inundated state voters with television ads that touted his business background and argued that the country needs a president with experience in the real world, not Washington.
The exit poll found that the economy was the dominant concern yesterday, with nearly half the voters (45 percent) listing it as their top issue. Yet McCain defeated Romney by a margin of 38 percent to 32 percent among those voters.
But personal qualities, rather than issues, mattered most to McCain's voters, the exit poll found, suggesting that other factors - especially the endorsement of Florida's Republican governor, Charlie Crist, made the difference.
