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Romney to clinch nomination with Texas win

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Mitt Romney is poised to claim the last of the 1,144 delegates needed for the Republican presidential nomination on Tuesday night, with a victory in Texas's primary expected to put him over the top and squarely onto the battlefield as President Barack Obama's challenger in the November election.

Romney has effectively been the Republican nominee since his last serious challenger, Rick Santorum, bowed out of the race in April. But by winning Texas -- which offers 155 delegates -- the former Massachusetts governor will have more than enough to accept the Republican Party's nomination at its convention in late August.

The onetime Bain Capital executive is spending the day in Colorado and Nevada, courting voters and raising campaign cash, including at a Las Vegas fundraiser with businessman Donald Trump. Romney also released a new campaign video slamming what he calls billions of wasted taxpayer dollars funneled by Obama to companies that later failed.

His campaign, meanwhile, kept up the drumbeat of criticism against Obama's economic policies, and said Romney will offer businesses tax relief.

"On day one, Mitt Romney will usher in pro-growth policies that help give businesses the confidence they need to begin hiring again," said campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul.

For Romney, who announced his bid for the Republican nomination almost a year ago, Tuesday will especially sweet. He lost the nomination in 2008 to Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican.

But polls show a tight race between Romney and Obama, and neither man can take victory in November for granted. The latest Gallup poll shows Obama edging Romney by just two percentage points nationally, and in swing states like Florida, Virginia and Ohio, Obama has a narrow lead.

The closeness of the race and the slow recovery portend a bruising election season that will be marked by a focus on jobs and the economy. In January 2009, when Obama took office, unemployment was 7.8%. It now stands at 8.1%. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch expect the jobless rate to be unchanged when the government releases the latest data on Friday. See MarketWatch Economic Calendar.

Meanwhile, jobless rates are falling in key swing states, recent data has shown.

Obama has no campaign events scheduled for Tuesday. Later this week, he is scheduled to campaign in Minnesota and Chicago. He has lately focused his attacks on Romney's career at Bain Capital, saying that running a private-equity firm and being president are vastly different.

After fending off attacks from Santorum, Newt Gingrich and others during the primary season, Romney has been sharpening his attacks on Obama as well as quietly deliberating about a running mate.

Names most often mentioned as Romney's potential vice presidential pick include Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. In recent public appearances, each man has assailed Obama's record.

Texas's 155 delegates are divided proportionally. But with the primary largely uncontested, Romney is poised to collect enough to vault him over the 1,144 threshold. He now has 1,086 delegates, according to The Wall Street Journal's delegate tracker.