Romney won with 67% in Connecticut, 63% in Rhode Island, 62% in New York, 58% in Pennsylvania, and 57% in Delaware.

The Boston Globe’s Viser says, “Romney implicitly accepted the Republican presidential nomination” last night. And: “At one point, he paid homage to the campaign slogans of both Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton in their bids to defeat an incumbent president during economic turmoil.”

Roll Call also makes that point with this headline: “Mitt Romney Accepts GOP Nomination.” 

The Boston Globe’s Johnson: “[W]ith a calmness borne by no longer having to glance back at carping nomination rivals, Romney looked ahead to deliver not so much of a victory speech as his mass introduction to the American audience. Over 15 minutes, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee purposefully hit all the touchstones aimed for in such a pivot.”

AP: “The Republican presidential nomination all but in hand, Mitt Romney is refocusing his efforts on challenging President Barack Obama, raising cash for the battle ahead and reconciling with onetime primary rival Rick Santorum.”

Santorum basically endorsed Romney last night. Asked if Romney’s the “right guy,” Santorum said, “Yeah, absolutely. He's the person that is going to go up against Barack Obama, it's pretty clear, and we need to win this race.” Asked if that was an endorsement, Santorum said: “Well, if that's what you want to call it, you can call it whatever you want. Look, I believe he's going to win the race.”

In a room overlooking the White House, the National Right to Life Committee, the nation's oldest anti-abortion-rights organization, announced their support this morning of Mitt Romney.

 "It is now time for pro-life Americans to unite behind Mitt Romney," said Carol Tobias, president of the group. "While some would like to call into question Mitt Romney's pro-life position, let me state clearly and emphatically, Mitt Romney is pro-life."

Tobias said the Romney campaign was informed of the endorsement late yesterday afternoon, and she read a statement from the former governor. In part, Romney said he was "grateful for [the NRLC's] support and honored by the trust they have place in me. I look forward to working together to carry out the great responsibility of protecting and defending innocent human life."

The endorsement comes late in the primary calendar compared to four years ago when the NRLC endorsed Fred Thompson.

"There was a different situation in 2008," Tobias said. "There was a pro-abortion candidate in the Republican primary, and we wanted to make sure that he did not get the nomination, so we wanted to select a prolife candidate to support. This year, all of the candidates seeking the Republican nomination were pro-life. They actively campaigned as pro-life; they took strong positions. So we early on said we'll be very happy with whoever gets the nomination. At this time, it has become apparent that Mitt Romney will be the party nominee, and we'll do everything we can to help him beat Barack Obama."

Tobias said when they earlier compared all of the candidate's positions and the judges they would appoint "all of the candidates were the same, which is why we stayed neutral in the race until this time when we have apparent nominee."

Tobias addressed concerns of people who feel Romney has flip-flopped on the issue of abortion.

"The pro-life movement is filled with converts," she said, "and we consider Mitt Romney to be one of those. I mean he did support abortion early on in his political career. But Ronald Reagan was pro-abortion early on in his career. We love people who have changed their position. Mitt Romney admits that he has done that, and we are happy to be working with him."

"I understand there are some that still have reservations," she said, "but I think, as the campaign goes on, it is a clear contrast between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama. I certainly expect pro-lifers to actively campaign for Mitt Romney and defeat Barack Obama."

The organization's Hispanic outreach coordinator Raimundo Rojas also spoke. Reaching out to Hispanic voters who overwhelming support the reelection of Obama over Romney, Rojas cited the disproportionate rate of abortions in the Hispanic community.

"Today, clearly the single most dangerous place for a Latina in these United States is in her mother's womb," Rojas said.

Rojas also attacked "looming tragic reality" of "ObamaCare," saying coverage would be denied, because of the "junta of bureaucrats."

Earlier this morning, another pro-life group, the Susan B. Anthony List, also announced their endorsement of Romney.

In an effort to bolster his sagging poll numbers with female voters, Mitt Romney and his campaign have made this new charge: that women have accounted for 92 percent of the job losses since President Obama took office.

Here’s what Romney said yesterday while campaigning in Delaware:

"There's been some talk about a war on women. The real war on women has been waged by the Obama administration's failure on the economy. Do you know what percentage of job losses during the Obama years of have been casualties of women losing jobs as opposed to men? Do you know how many women, what percent of the job losses were women? 92.3 percent of the job losses during the Obama years have been women who've lost those jobs."

The Romney campaign also held a conference call making this same point. "The number of unemployed women has increased by nearly a million under Barack Obama," surrogate Bay Buchanan said. "Ninety-two percent of the jobs lost since he took office are women."

But First Read contacted the Bureau of Labor Statistics to get to the bottom of this 92 percent charge. The conclusion: The Romney campaign’s figures don’t tell the whole story.

The campaign, in a research document circulated yesterday and on its website, said the numbers come from the “Current Employment Statistics” database at BLS. The document notes that there was a net change of -740,000 nonfarm payroll jobs from January 2009 to March 2012 -- and that women accounted for 683,000 of those jobs.

That is accurate, according to BLS. But Brian Davidson, an economist at BLS, told First Read: “The math they use is correct; the terminology is completely wrong.”

Davidson noted that women actually make up a larger share of the workforce now than they did in Jan. 2008 before the financial meltdown, and since January 2009, it is a statistically insignificant change.

In January 2008, women made up 48.8 percent of the workforce; in January 2009, 49.5 percent; now 49.3 percent.

“Do we still have the same amount of women workers relative to men in the ‘net-change’? Yes we do,” Davidson said.

He added, “It’s like trying to pull a bunny out of a hat, but there’s no bunny inside.”

Independent fact-checkers like Politifact and the Washington Post’s Fact Checker also took on the claim.

Giving the claim a “Mostly False,” Politifact called it “misleading”: “We found that though the numbers are accurate, their reading of them isn’t.”

“One could reasonably argue that January 2009 employment figures are more a result of President George W. Bush’s policies, at least as far as any president can be blamed or credited for private-sector hiring,” Politifact wrote. “We reached out to Gary Steinberg, spokesman for the BLS, for his take on the claim. He pointed out that women’s job losses are high for that period of time because millions of men had already lost their jobs. Women were next. … [I]f you count all those jobs lost beginning in 2007, women account for just 39.7 percent of the total. … There is a small amount of truth to the claim, but it ignores critical facts that would give a different impression.”

The Washington Post’s fact checker, Glenn Kessler, begins this way: “[W]e frown on the somewhat arbitrary dividing line of measuring jobs statistics by presidential terms. It is a common journalistic — and political — metric. But restarting the employment clock from the moment the president takes the oath of office doesn’t tell you much about a his performance, especially since it takes time for the new president’s policies to take effect.”

In fact, he writes, “[T]here is less to this stat than meets the eye. … If you start the data in February, then the overall job loss is just 16,000 jobs—while women lost 484,000 jobs. … How could women lose more jobs than the overall total? It’s a function of the dates one picks.”

And notably: “[T]he picture becomes clearer if you start running the data from the date the recession began — December 2007. With that starting point, the total decline in jobs was just over 5 million, with women accounting for nearly 1.8 million of those jobs. Now look what happens when we just look at the past year, March 2011 to March 2012. Men gained nearly 1.9 million jobs while women gained 635,000 jobs.”

*** CORRECTION *** An earlier version of this post noted that the Romney campaign used numbers from January 2009. The campaign has reached out to First Read and notes that it used January 2009 as a "baseline."

"We use January 2009 as the baseline, which means the first month of losses charged to Obama is the decline in February vs. January," said campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul.

*** UPDATE *** Saul also passes along a letter written by its policy director, Lanhee Chen, to dispute the Politifact story (and "Mostly False" rating) that attempted a fact check on a Tweet by Saul referencing the numbers. Chen accuses Politifact of a "failure to focus on the appropriate context."

"First, why should it matter that men had already lost millions of jobs?" Chen wrote. "Was it now women’s 'turn'? Is this part of the President’s conception of “fairness” that he talks about so frequently? If the data showed the opposite (i.e. that women had been disproportionately hurt prior to the President taking office), we imagine you would have used that as an indictment of Ms. Saul by arguing that the trend was inherent to the recession and predated the President."

Chen concluded, "In summary, your piece confirms Ms. Saul’s claim as accurate, and then relies on a direct contradiction with a prior Politifact piece and incorrect claims from two publicly acknowledged Obama supporters (including one Administration official!) as the basis for rating it “Mostly False.”  I hope you will agree that this rating was inappropriate and that the piece does not reflect the journalistic standards to which your organization intends to hold itself.  Please retract the piece and issue a correction as soon as possible."

Demographics proved to be destiny once again for Mitt Romney, who is one big step closer to wrapping up the Republican presidential nomination.

NBC News has declared Romney the winner in Wisconsin. He won 42-38 percent over Rick Santorum with 99 percent of the vote in, and familiar patterns emerged that led to his win, according to exit polls.

Santorum faced an uphill battle going into Wisconsin because, despite its blue-collar voters, Wisconsin lacked the evangelicals that have fueled his insurgent campaign. And he only won those voters by a narrow margin.

Romney also went beyond his traditional base, winning with Tea Party supporters (48-37 percent), those making below $100,000 (40-38 percent), non-college graduates (42-38 percent), and tying with very conservatives (43-43 percent).

Just 38 percent of Republican primary voters Tuesday said they were born-again or evangelical Christians in Wisconsin – the same number that said so in 2008. But Santorum won them by just a 43-39 percent margin.

Santorum has not won in a state with less than 57 percent evangelical population. The average evangelical population in states Santorum has won was 72 percent.

By contrast, the average evangelical population in states where Romney won was 36 percent, about where it was in Wisconsin Tuesday.

Voters were more downscale and blue collar than in typical Romney wins. States where he has won averaged 50 percent college grads and 33 percent making more than $100,000. In Wisconsin, 43 percent had a college degree and 26 percent said they made more than $100,000 a year. But both numbers were up from 2008.

Romney’s biggest margin was on one question. Voters said the one quality that mattered most in deciding how they would vote was being able to defeat President Obama. Almost one-in-four (36 percent) said that was their top priority, and overwhelmingly, they picked Romney by a whopping 68-23 percent margin.

Mitt Romney cruised to a blowout victory in Maryland, giving him one more notch in his belt as he moves closer to the Republican nomination.

NBC News has declared Romney the winner “by a significant margin” in Maryland. All votes are not yet counted. Polls closed at 8 p.m. ET.

The state lined up favorably for Romney, according to the exit polls. Romney has won in states with fewer evangelicals, where people are highly educated and wealthier than average. Those familiar demographic patterns held once again.

Less than one-in-four (37 percent) said they were born again or evangelical Christians, almost six-in-10 (57 percent) had a college degree, and nearly half (48 percent) said they made more than $100,000 a year.

Romney cleaned up with seniors, those who declared themselves “somewhat conservative,” those who said they are “moderate,” and among those who said the economy, beating President Obama, and having the right experience to be president were their top priorities.

Romney also struggled with groups he’s traditionally struggled with. Even though he won those 65 and older in a landslide, he lost those in the 40-49 age group by 15 points to Rick Santorum. He also lost those who wanted a “true conservative” (61-12 percent), someone with “strong moral character” (52-26 percent), and for whom abortion was their top issue (63-16).

The margin was also narrow among those who considered themselves “very conservative” (40-40) and born-again Christians (41-38).

But, fortunately for Romney, the state’s Republicans were less staunchly conservative than in states he lost. More than a third (34 percent) said Santorum was “too conservative.”

Republicans in the state were also pessimistic about the state of the economy with just about a quarter (22 percent) who said the economy is starting to recover, but half (48 percent) said it will get worse.

Romney may very well come out of Maryland with all of the state’s 37 delegates, as some are given to the statewide winner and the rest awarded winner-take-all by congressional district. If Romney wins each district, which is likely, he will win all of the delegates.

The majority of voters (51 percent) came from either the Baltimore or DC suburbs -- 33 percent from Baltimore suburbs, 18 percent from DC suburbs.

PEWAUKEE, Wisc. -- The drama facing Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker took center stage at a GOP dinner here Saturday, where presidential candidates Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and other high profile Republicans – including Walker himself – addressed several hundred activists days before this state’s April 3 primary.

Walker, who faces a recall election on June 5^th, was the center of gravity among a roster of national Republican stars – demonstrating the national import of a battle threatening to pull attention and resources away from the presidential race.

Calling Walker the "anti-Barack Obama," RNC Chairman Reince Priebus cast the recall as a prelude to the Presidential election, declaring, "Anything Scott Walker needs from the RNC, Scott Walker’s going to get from the RNC."

"This is not even just about Scott Walker.  It's not," Priebus said.  "This is about whether or not in this country we can elect people of their word, who clearly lay out their agenda before they’re elected."

But earlier, during his own remarks, Walker conceded he should have won more support for his controversial budget plan, which set in motion a fight over collective bargaining rights for public sector unions.

"Along the way, should I have spent some more time maybe explaining?  Absolutely," Walker said, adding, of his state’s budget crisis, "I bet you a lot of taxpayers would have said, 'Governor, you need to fix this.'"

The remarks were a noticeable act of modesty before a crowd that seemed sympathetic to Walker’s view of the drama that played out at this state’s capital building last year.

"The whole thing is coming to a crescendo.  It’s coming to a crescendo on June the 5^th here in Wisconsin," Rep. Paul Ryan – who endorsed Romney last week – told the crowd here. 

As for the candidates themselves, Romney declared Walker a "hero," and Santorum called for the crowd to support Walker and his Lieutenant Governor, Rebecca Kleefisch, who also faces recall.

"Please continue to lead and defend these two great public officials," Santorum said.

From his home state of Wisconsin, Rep. Paul Ryan endorsed Mitt Romney ahead of Tuesday's primary there. He said Romney "is the best person to be president" and "best person to beat" President Obama.

"Mitt Romney is clearly that person," he said this morning on Fox and Friends.

He said he "spent a good deal of time with Romney" and "I am convinced Mitt Romney has the skills, principle, courage, and tenacity to do what it takes to get America back on track."

He also stressed that the "primary could enter a phase when it becomes counterproductive if this drags on much longer."

He added that he hasn't been able to touch base with Rick Santorum yet, will do so later today, but the point he would make to him, Ryan said -- after spending the last six months figuring out what it takes to run and fund a presidential campaign -- is that he's "convinced if this drags out into the summer, it's just going to make it tougher to beat Barack Obama. The more we drag it out, the harder it is to beat" Obama. He said conservatives need to “coalesce."

Ryan has for the past six months led the Republican National Committee's presidential fundraising efforts as head of the RNC's Presidential Trust.

House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has announced he is endorsing Mitt Romney to be the Republican presidential nominee. McCarthy becomes the second member of House Republican leadership to do so, after House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) announced his endorsement of Romney on Meet the Press on March 4th. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has not waded into the race.

McCarthy will also act as the California Statewide Chair for the Romney campaign.

"After a long and grueling primary, it is clear that Mitt Romney is the best candidate to face President Obama and fix the mess of his one and only term," McCarthy said in a statement. "Republicans need to unite and work together if we plan to take back the White House and put in place policies that will get our nation back on a path to prosperity by reducing taxes, shrinking government, and empowering the private sector. I am proud to support Mitt Romney and urge my fellow Republicans to do the same."