Mitt Romney is declaring "I'm going to get this nomination" as Republicans in 10 states had contests to pick a challenger to President Barack Obama. 
 
 Romney on Tuesday congratulated rivals Newt Gingrich for his win in home state Georgia and Rick Santorum for wins in Oklahoma and Tennessee. Contests are still going elsewhere on the single largest day of voting so far in the nominating battle. 
 
 Romney is telling supporters that it's been a long road getting to Super Tuesday and, in his words, "my opponents have worked very hard." 
 
 Romney is keeping most of his election night remarks honed on Obama, again criticizing the incumbent he wants to vote from office in November. He warns supporters that Obama would be "unrestrained" if he wins a second term and would trample Americans' freedoms. 
 
 THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below. 
 
 Mitt Romney says he doesn't get nervous on primary nights. He doesn't have a lucky tie. And the best part about Super Tuesday, he and his wife said before the results came in, was heading back to Boston and eating dinner with one of their five sons. 
 
 "Oh, boy, we're headed home," Romney said as he stood in the aisle of the campaign charter plane that has carried him to Ohio, Idaho, Washington state and back to Ohio in the past week alone. 
 
 Romney made the comments as he and his wife, Ann, made a rare visit to the national press corps traveling on his plane as it waited on the tarmac to take him to Belmont, Mass., where the couple raised its family and have a house. 
 
 He's been on the road for two straight months, having last slept there on Jan. 6, right before New Hampshire's primary four days later. Massachusetts voted Tuesday along with nine other states that, together, handed him a significant number of delegates and set him on the path to becoming the GOP nominee. 
 
 For 25 minutes, the Romneys chatted casually with reporters, a remarkable moment for a campaign that until now has held the national media at arms-length. The moment was part of a tentative transition as Romney shifts from his role as the nominal frontrunner in the GOP nomination fight to a general election against President Barack Obama. 
 
 At a victory party in Boston, Romney was set to focus on Obama and cast the contest in a new light. "Tonight, we've taken one more step toward restoring the promise of America," Romney planned to say. "Tomorrow, we wake up and we start again. And the next day we do the same." 
 
 On most days, Romney gets on and off the front of the plane as reporters climb on and off the back, taking photographs from many rows behind. He has held question-and-answer sessions with the press corps on the plane, and sometimes hands out lunch or snacks to it. But not often. 
 
 Now, the candidate _ as well as his advisers _ are making a clear push to build a stronger relationship with the media and recover from a series of comments by Romney himself that made the wealthy former Massachusetts governor seem out of touch. 
 
 These days, the campaign is working to show the human side of a candidate who aides say is warm, funny and down-to-earth in private _ and provide a little bit of context to go with the scrutiny that's set to get much more intense as Romney moves toward becoming the GOP nominee. 
 
 To that end, the chat session at the back of the plane was followed by a formal press conference outside a Massachusetts polling place. 
 
 "There will always be in the world of media people who will find clip sentences to try and say something that you didn't mean to say," Romney told a bank of cameras there. "That's just the nature of the process." 
 
 No cameras were permitted by the campaign staff to film Romney on the plane, and reporters were prohibited from reporting much of what he said as a condition for getting access to him _ as is often standard during presidential campaigns. The difference was plain: He told personal stories, spoke more slowly and cracked easy jokes when he knew it wouldn't be used in stories. 
 
 At his news conference, answers were quick. 
 
 He avoided specifics, saying he wanted to win in Massachusetts _ his home state _ but offering no predictions about states where the contests were closer. He refused to comment on Rush Limbaugh's criticism of Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke, who the radio host called a "slut" and a "prostitute," saying only that he planned to focus his campaign on jobs and the economy. 
 
 "I think we'll pick up a lot of delegates," was all Romney would say about Tuesday night. "This is a process of gathering enough delegates to become the nominee, and I think we're on the track to have that happen." ||||| With a vital win in the Georgia primary Tuesday, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich quickly looked ahead to the next round of contests, promising yet another comeback for what he called "the power of ideas." 
 
 Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich speaks at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, Tuesday, March 6, 2012, in Huntsville, Ala. Gingrich has won the Georgia Republican primary.... (Associated Press) 
 
 The victory, the only one besides the Jan. 21 South Carolina primary, hardly brings the former House speaker within striking distance of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney or former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who racked up more states in Tuesday's 10-state gauntlet. 
 
 But it keeps Gingrich's roller-coaster campaign going, with a round of contests including Southern primaries only days away. 
 
 "Tomorrow will bring another chapter in the race for the nomination, but it's more than a chapter in the race for the nomination," Gingrich told cheering supporters at a suburban Atlanta hotel. "It's a chapter in a fight for the soul of the Republican Party. It's a chapter in the fight for the very nature of America. It's a chapter defining who we are as a people." 
 
 Gingrich, who regained some of his footing in Georgia after a six-week winless stretch, pledged to continue campaigning and planned to fly Wednesday morning to Alabama, and campaign Thursday in Mississippi. Both hold primaries on March 13. 
 
 "I want you to know in the morning we are going on to Alabama. We're going on to Mississippi. We're going on to Kansas, and that's just this week," he said. 
 
 Gingrich had already campaigned in Alabama Tuesday before the polls closed in neighboring Georgia. The trip to Huntsville and speech at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center there was aimed partly at seizing on the expected Georgia win, but also projecting past Super Tuesday. 
 
 He admitted that he would have had little credibility to proceed, had he not won the state where voters had elected him to Congress for 20 years. 
 
 Instead, he accepted victory in the same hotel where in 1994 he learned that Republicans had taken control of the U.S. House for the first time in 40 years, guaranteeing him the speakership that made him a national figure. 
 
 "And, you know, for that entire campaign, all of the elites thought we were crazy," he said, referring to the campaign's signature Contract With America platform. 
 
 Gingrich has billed himself as the ideas candidate in the race against Romney, Santorum and Texas Congressman Ron Paul. Romney and Santorum have at times mocked Gingrich, who has touted far-flung ideas, such as lighting U.S. highways with mirrors in space. 
 
 But the former college professor doubled down on his belief that the U.S. can lead space exploration again by visiting the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala., Tuesday. 
 
 "This is the launching pad for the next phase of excitement and invention," Gingrich said in the center's museum, in the shadow of a model of a Saturn rocket. He was referring to the space program, but may as well have been referring to his campaign. 
 
 Gingrich's campaign has spiraled downward three times in the past 10 months, only to rise twice, notably before his comeback win in the Jan. 21 South Carolina primary, his lone victory in the campaign. 
 
 Gingrich was looking to build on his Southern strength, but lost Tennessee to Santorum despite barnstorming the state Monday and introducing a late round of television ads. 
 
 Even if the results were mixed, Gingrich returned to a theme that lifted him: Pitting himself squarely against Obama. 
 
 "And let me be very clear. I believe that I am the one candidate who has the ability to debate Barack Obama decisively," Gingrich told the audience in Atlanta, prompting cheers. 
 
 Gingrich's peaks have come on the heels of standout performances during key debates in the series of 20 held since last May. However, there are no GOP debates scheduled. Still, Gingrich has said he will invite his rivals to debate in Alabama and Mississippi before March 13. 
 
 Gingrich also has been helped by four political action committees, including one financed largely by billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson. 
 
 Yet Gingrich sought to portray a win in Georgia as a triumph in light of heavy spending on anti-Gingrich attack ads by the pro-Romney political action committee Restore Our Future. ||||| With less than an hour to go before the first polls closed, Ron Paul said he doesn’t expect any one candidate to “clinch the election” on Super Tuesday. 
 
 “Nobody’s going to clinch the election today and you know, you get Gingrich winning some states, you get Santorum winning some states, you get Ron Paul winning some states,” the Texas congressman said on CNN. 
 
 Text Size - 
 
 + 
 
 reset Paul: 'Nobody's going to clinch' 
 
 “Sorting all this delegate selection process, I think we have a little bit of time left before we declare anybody a winner.” 
 
 Asked what he would make of Mitt Romney winning as many as five or six states Tuesday, Paul said, “It makes him the front-runner, but I think he’d still have a long way to go.” 
 
 Paul said his campaign was focusing its efforts in three of the Super Tueday states: Alaska, Idaho and North Dakota. 
 
 Polls in Georgia, Vermont and Virginia polls will close at 7 p.m.
– Super Tuesday began with four candidates in the mix, and it ended the same way. All four are focusing on what comes next: Rick Santorum, speaking before Ohio's results were in, said he would pick up a "couple of gold medals" tonight along with a "whole passel full of silver medals," a showing that he says proves he's a legitimate national candidate. “We have won in the West, the Midwest and the South, and we’re ready to win across this country.” More at the Tennessean. Mitt Romney, speaking before his Ohio win was confirmed gave a pretty standard stump speech, congratulated his opponents on their success, and promised to win. "I'm going to get this nomination," he told supporters. He focused most of his speech on President Obama, rather than his opponents, notes AP. Newt Gingrich gleefully celebrated his big win in Georgia, taking pains to tweak the "national elite, especially in the Republican party" who he says have repeatedly tried to torpedo his campaign, reports AP. "I'm the tortoise" who has survived "lots of bunny rabbits," he said, ticking off former rivals such as Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann. He also spent a good deal of his speech ridiculing President Obama's energy policy and high gas prices. Ron Paul, speaking just before the first polls closed, wasn't ready to anoint anybody, notes Politico. “Nobody's going to clinch the election tonight," he said. "Sorting all this delegate selection process, I think we have a little bit of time left before we declare anybody a winner."