Romney takes Ohio in Super Tuesday drama: US media

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Republican White House hopeful Mitt Romney won the key Ohio vote on Super Tuesday, snatching victory from rival Rick Santorum in a nail-biting finish, US media projected.

A win in Ohio, a key battleground state on the road to the White House, handed Romney a fifth Super Tuesday victory as he fights to secure the party's nomination to be the Republican challenger in the November elections.

CNN and Fox News predicted he won by 38 percent of the vote, over 37 per cent for Santorum, with 96 per cent of precincts reporting.

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich was in third at 15 per cent, and Texas congressman Ron Paul was in fourth place at nine per cent.

The four candidates are vying for the right to take on Democratic President Barack Obama in November.

Ohio has symbolic importance. As a big state with an industrial base, a strong rural community, and a notoriously fickle electorate, it is a crucial swing state that will be a key battleground in the general election.

Amazingly, not one Republican nominee has gone on to win the presidential race without also carrying Ohio on election day.

Romney claimed Super Tuesday wins in Idaho, Massachusetts, Ohio, Vermont and Virginia, according to US media projections. Santorum won contests in three states -- North Dakota, Oklahoma and Tennessee.

Gingrich earned a landslide win in Georgia, where voters elected him to Congress for 20 years. Results were still pending in the last of 10 Super Tuesday states, Alaska.