John McCain now has a pathway to the Republican presidential nomination. The question is whether he can put his fractured party back together.

The Arizona senator, long the bane of the GOP establishment, showed in Florida that he could begin cobbling together a new Republican coalition – attracting enough support from all corners of the party base to give him a plurality in the biggest and most diverse state to vote so far in the 2008 campaign.

He took about a quarter of conservatives, secured nearly a third of evangelicals, dominated among his typical base of self-described moderates, and easily won among voters who care about authenticity, experience and electability.

In winning Florida, McCain threw off a major critique of his candidacy: He prevailed in an all-Republican primary that, unlike previous votes, excluded the more moderate independents who ensured McCain’s wins in New Hampshire and South Carolina.

And in a state plagued by insurance woes, falling home prices and a rising number of foreclosures, he defeated a rival, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who portrayed himself as the best-equipped to fix the economy.

Tuesday’s results set up a dramatic face-off over the next six days as McCain and Romney compete in more than 20 states. Each man will aim to prove that only he can build the elusive GOP coalition.

“The race seems to have settled in now,” said Florida Republican Gov. Charlie Crist, whose 11th-hour endorsement of McCain helped give him credibility with some in the state’s GOP base. “It is clear that it seems to be a two-man race.”

The biggest surprise Tuesday may have been McCain’s ability to close the gap on economic issues.

Romney spent millions of dollars on television ads touting himself as an economic leader who had built a successful business, and in speeches he chided McCain for his recent quip that economics were “not my strong suit.”

But even as McCain accentuated his national security record – which helped him win key counties in the conservative, military-friendly Florida Panhandle – he also took strides to repair his image on the economy.

He talked about his experience as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, and he aligned himself closely with Crist, who has championed a property tax relief program to fix the state’s problems. He even bragged to a television interviewer that he was reading a bible of free-market economics, Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations.”

Apparently it worked.

Exit polls conducted for media organizations showed that nearly half of Florida Republican voters ranked the economy as the most pressing issue – and McCain beat Romney in that group.

That bodes well for McCain as the race now moves to states such as California, which, like Florida, is an epicenter for the country’s real estate meltdown.

peter.wallsten@latimes.com

Times staff writers Seema Mehta in St. Petersburg, Fla., and Ben DuBose and Sarah D. Wire in Washington contributed to this report.