Romney projected to win Arizona: US media
White House hopeful Mitt Romney has won Tuesday's Republican Party primary in Arizona as expected, according to projections by US media.
A victory in the southwestern US state boosts Romney's frontrunner position in the race to determine which Republican will face President Barack Obama in November.
A far more contentious battle was playing out Tuesday in the Midwestern state of Michigan, where the vote minutes after polls closed was too close to call.
Arizonans cast their final ballots by 7 pm (0200 GMT Wednesday) and while votes were still being counted and the Republican Party had yet to put out any official results, early exit polls put the state in Romney's win column.
CNN exit polls projected 44 per cent of the Arizona vote for Romney and 27 per cent for his main rival Rick Santorum, a religious conservative who has been surging nationally in recent weeks.
The other two in the race, former House speaker Newt Gingrich and Representative Ron Paul of Texas, are trailing.
Results from CBS News exit polls in the state, which borders Mexico, showed 48 per cent of voters cited the US economy as the most important issue to them, compared with 32 per cent for the federal budget and just 12 per cent citing illegal immigration.
The exit polls also showed that 38 per cent of voters said electability was the top reason for their decision.
Romney, a multi-millionaire investor and former governor of liberal Massachusetts, has struggled to prove his conservative credentials, but has consistently polled as the most viable Republican candidate in terms of beating Obama in the November general election.
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