Benton County Tea Party

Mitt Romney heads into the next phase of the Republican presidential nominating contest carrying a big win under his belt, after reasserting his frontrunner status with a crushing victory over Newt Gingrich in Florida.

However, Romney and the rest of the Republican candidates will have to fine-tune their approach as they enter a large list of contests scattered all across the country in February, starting in Nevada this Saturday.

There are no historically decisive primaries on the horizon, no big-ticket behemoths that are considered make-or-break for a primary candidate. Instead, the candidates face what could be a drawn-out race for delegates, one that will force the campaigns to make more strategic decisions about where and when to allocate resources.