THE VILLAGES, Fla. — Newt Gingrich is painfully aware that Mitt Romney is pulling away from him in Florida on the strength of one issue: electability. Republican voters here are determined to nominate the candidate most likely to defeat Barack Obama, and many are acting as armchair political analysts, trying to weigh Newt’s baggage versus Mitt’s baggage, and trying to divine how the media might cover Newt versus Obama versus how it might cover Mitt versus Obama. Among voters most concerned about electability, Romney leads Gingrich by a significant margin.

That is why Gingrich, on a visit to this sprawling, 85,000-resident retirement community in central Florida, hit Romney hard over the issue of who can win in November.