LAS VEGAS (Reuters) – Republican front-runner Mitt Romney surged on Friday toward an apparent easy win in Nevada, with a new poll showing him beating rival Newt Gingrich by a 2-to-1 margin on the eve of the state’s U.S. presidential nominating contest.

Romney is seeking his second consecutive victory in the state-by-state Republican battle on Saturday after seizing momentum earlier in the week by crushing Gingrich in Florida.

A new Public Policy Polling survey showed Romney picking up support from 50 percent of likely voters in Nevada’s caucuses. Gingrich was at 25 percent, U.S. Representative Ron Paul at 15 percent and former Senator Rick Santorum at 8 percent.

The poll surveyed 937 likely Republican caucus voters on Wednesday and Thursday. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.2 percentage points. Its results were similar to a Las Vegas Review-Journal newspaper poll on Thursday that gave the former Massachusetts governor a 20-point lead in Nevada.

“Mitt Romney is headed for a big win in Nevada on Saturday,” said Dean Debnam, president of Public Policy Polling. “He’s winning with virtually every demographic group we track.”

Romney, in economically hard-hit Nevada for three campaign events on Friday, welcomed the latest jobs report showing U.S. unemployment dipping to 8.3 percent, but said President Barack Obama’s policies had prevented a broader recovery.

“We can do better,” said Romney, who has touted his business experience as head of a private equity group as a cure for the ailing economy. “Nearly 24 million Americans remain unemployed, underemployed, or have just stopped looking for work.”

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) – Real estate mogul Donald Trump re-injected himself and his wealth into the Republican presidential race by endorsing Mitt Romney on Thursday, a day after the front-runner stumbled with remarks suggesting he was indifferent to America’s poor.

Trump, himself an on-again/off-again Republican presidential candidate and former member of the party, said he would back Romney in the race for the nomination to oppose President Barack Obama in the November 6 election.

Trump told reporters he got to know the former Massachusetts governor during several recent conversations and was impressed with his tough talk on China and said he was won over by Romney’s strong performance campaigning in Florida.

“I was very impressed by the last two debates,” he said in Las Vegas.

Trump, who announced he was leaving the party two months ago, seems an unlikely choice for Republican kingmaker. But the casino owner and reality television star is popular in Nevada, and from the Romney team’s perspective it is better to have him with them than against them.

Nevada’s caucuses on Saturday are the next contest in the state-by-state process of choosing a Republican nominee.

Romney has won two of the first four contests, taking primaries in New Hampshire and Florida by healthy margins. Former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich won South Carolina’s primary, and former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum won Iowa’s caucuses by a narrow margin over Romney.

TAMPA/ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) – Mitt Romney was poised on Tuesday for a victory in Florida that would give him significant momentum toward the Republican presidential nomination and send chief rival Newt Gingrich scrambling to fight back.

Romney enjoyed double-digit leads in Election Day statewide polls in Florida, the largest nominating contest so far this year. A win would be his biggest boost yet in the state-by-state battle to decide who will face Democratic U.S. President Barack Obama in the November 6 election.

A Romney victory would mean the former governor of Massachusetts has come roaring back from a crushing loss to Gingrich in South Carolina’s primary 10 days ago that deflated Romney’s candidacy after he won New Hampshire and narrowly lost Iowa.

Winning Florida would demonstrate Romney’s ability to compete strongly in a major political battleground state with a broad voter base that includes a diverse electorate including Tea Party conservatives, evangelicals and Cuban-Americans.

Apparently headed for a dispiriting defeat was Gingrich, the former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives whose surprise South Carolina win stopped Romney’s momentum.

Romney still narrowly trails Gingrich in some national polls and many analysts say he needs a double-digit victory in the “Sunshine State” to cement his status as front-runner as the national Republican nomination contest continues.

Romney’s team kept Gingrich off balance through the Florida campaign with a barrage of negative attack ads that focused on his ethical violations in Congress in the 1990s and undermining his argument that he was a foot soldier in Ronald Reagan’s conservative movement in the 1980s.

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) – Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney held a comfortable double-digit lead in polls over struggling rival Newt Gingrich as Florida’s Republican voters cast ballots on Tuesday in a pivotal presidential primary election.

Florida is by far the largest state to hold a primary this year and a Romney victory would give him a big boost in the state-by-state battle to decide who will face Democratic President Barack Obama in the November general election.

Gingrich, a former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, was riding high just 10 days ago after an upset win in South Carolina’s January 21 primary and led in Florida polls as recently as early last week.

But the well-funded and well-organized Romney took back the lead after his two strong debate performances and a blizzard of television advertisements attacking Gingrich.

The campaigns and allied Super PAC fundraising groups have until the end of Tuesday to report whose money they are spending, and how, in an increasingly expensive campaign. Campaign finance filings to the Federal Election Commission will for the first time officially show who contributed money to the Super PACs and fueled their multimillion-dollar spending sprees.

Romney’s support in Florida is at 43 percent versus Gingrich at 28 percent, according to Reuters/Ipsos online poll data on Monday. Two other contenders who are no longer campaigning in Florida, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum and Texas congressman Ron Paul, were at 12 percent and 5 percent, respectively.

On the stump on Monday, Romney was breezy and Gingrich combative, reflecting the respective states of their campaigns. Romney cancelled a scheduled Tuesday morning campaign event; Gingrich scheduled four appearances in a final appeal for support on primary day.

COCOA BEACH, Florida (Reuters) – Florida’s Republican voters go to the polls on Tuesday in a high-stakes presidential primary election that could determine the direction of the race.

In what shapes up as a two-man contest, most opinion polls show Mitt Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, holding a double-digit lead over Newt Gingrich, a former U.S. House speaker.

Florida is the largest state to hold a presidential primary so far this year and a Romney victory would give him a big boost in the state-by-state battle to decide who will face President Barack Obama in November.

Polls open at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. local time. Most of the state is on Eastern Time, except the western Panhandle region, which is on Central Time.

Just 10 days ago Gingrich was riding high after an upset win in South Carolina. Strong debate performances fueled a come-from-behind win in which Gingrich captured all key demographics.

Florida has been a different story, in part reflecting a torrent of attack ads targeting Gingrich, both from Romney’s campaign and from an independent “super” political action committee.

On the stump on Monday, Romney was breezy and Gingrich combative, reflecting the respective states of their campaigns. Romney cancelled his scheduled Tuesday morning event in Tampa; Gingrich will crisscross the Orlando region making four appearances in a final appeal for support.

BOSTON (Reuters) – Possessing ‘All-American’ good looks, married to a supermodel and one of the most successful quarterbacks of all time, the New England Patriots’ Tom Brady transcends sport.

But on Sunday, it will be his play on the field that draws worldwide attention. A fourth Super Bowl win would seal the California-born athlete’s place among the game’s elite.

He already holds many National Football League (NFL) regular-season and post-season marks. But for the 34-year-old Brady in the final years of his career, winning, not statistics, is the key.

After a few years of being overshadowed by rivals like Peyton Manning and Drew Brees, New England’s three-time Super Bowl winner will get a chance against the New York Giants in Indianapolis to put a definitive stamp on his career.

He hardly seemed destined for elite status when he was the 199th selection in the 2000 NFL draft following his stint at quarterback at the University of Michigan.

His lowly selection led the NFL Network to declare him the best draft “steal” of all time.

Brady started as a fourth-string quarterback but playing time came in 2001 after an injury to starting quarterback Drew Bledsoe.

PANAMA CITY/ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) – Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich received the endorsement of former rival Herman Cain on Saturday and vowed to fight until the end no matter what happens in Florida’s upcoming primary vote.

Cain, who ended his presidential campaign in December under the weight of sexual harassment allegations, made the endorsement at an event with Gingrich in West Palm Beach. It is unclear how much impact it will have for Gingrich in Florida, which has been trending toward rival Mitt Romney ahead of the state’s vote on Tuesday.

“I hereby officially and enthusiastically endorse Newt Gingrich for president of the United States,” Cain said.

Romney, already confident after strong performances in two Florida debates, is gaining ground over Gingrich for the nomination to take on Democratic President Barack Obama in the November 6 election.

Cain said Gingrich has been going through a “sausage grinder” in his battle for the Republican nomination.

The former pizza magnate has been seeking to remain in the public eye after his presidential drive stalled out. Recently he had declared he would endorse “the people.” Both Cain and Gingrich are from Georgia.

Just three days ahead of a pivotal primary race that could determine who has the momentum to win the Republican state-by-state nominating battle, Gingrich and Romney spent the day traveling around Florida in a search for undecided voters.

LUCIE, Florida (Reuters) – Bolstered by positive poll numbers, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Saturday sought to vanquish rival Newt Gingrich in Florida with a biting new ad about ethics charges and a mocking tone about his debate complaints.

Just days ahead of a pivotal primary race that could determine who has the momentum to win the Republican state-by-state nominating battle, Romney and Gingrich traveled around Florida in a final weekend pitch to undecided voters.

Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts and off-and-on front-runner to take on Democratic President Barack Obama in the November 6 election, needs a victory on Tuesday to regain his footing after losing badly to Gingrich in the South Carolina primary vote last weekend.

Gingrich, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, needs a Florida win to solidify the frontrunner mantle he took on after his resounding victory in the third nominating contests.

“If we win Florida, I will be the nominee,” Gingrich declared at a golf facility in Port St. Lucie.

Polls show Romney with an edge, however, and the former private equity executive used his momentum and financial muscle to draw up a closing argument that Gingrich’s behavior in Congress made him unfit to be the Republican Party’s leader.

In a simple ad titled “History Lesson” — a play on Gingrich’s background as a historian — Romney’s campaign showed footage of an NBC television anchor’s news report the day Democrats and Republicans found him guilty of ethics violations in 1997.