Posted on 01/12/2012 8:29:04 AM PST by Qbert
While South Carolina looks like a toss-up, according to the latest Insider Advantage poll, Florida looks like it could become a rout. The latest Rasmussen poll shows Mitt Romney with a bigger lead than he had in New Hampshire, beating Newt Gingrich by 22 points in a state that could spell the effective end of the primary:
Mitt Romney is now running away with the race in the latest Rasmussen Reports’ survey of the end-of-the-month Florida Republican Primary.
Coming off his decisive win in Tuesday’s New Hampshire Primary, Romney earns 41% support with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich a distant second at 19%. A new telephone survey of Likely Florida Republican Primary Voters finds former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum running third with 15% of the vote.Texas Congressman Ron Paul and former Utah Governor Jon Hunstman are next with nine percent (9%) and five percent (5%) support respectively. The two men finished second and third in New Hampshire where independents are allowed to vote in the primary. The Florida primary is open to Republican voters only. Texas Governor Rick Perry runs dead last among primary voters in the Sunshine State with two percent (2%) support. One percent (1%) prefers some other candidate in the race, and eight percent (8%) are undecided.
A loss in South Carolina might soften up that lead a bit for Romney, but that would have to be a very large tumble to lose the state. His opponents would have to win back huge chunks of demographics, including an 18-point lead among men and a 28-point lead among women, where Gingrich and Santorum tie at 16% to Romney’s near-majority 44%. Romney even gets the edge among very conservative voters, 29/26 over Santorum with Gingrich at 25%, but wins a majority of “somewhat conservative” voters at 53%, with Gingrich in second at 16%.
Nor is Gingrich likely to make a charge in Florida, according to favorability numbers in this poll os 750 likely GOP primary voters. He has a respectable 59/37 rating, but Romney’s is 76/21, with his 32% “very favorable” eleven points better than Gingrich’s. Perry has cratered in Florida, with a 43/52 favorability rating, which still beats both Paul (33/64) and Huntsman (34/51). Only Santorum challenges Romney in this measure with a 61/29 rating, but only 8% see him as the strongest candidate to challenge Obama, while a majority of 55% say that about Romney. Almost eight in ten expect Romney to win the nomination, and 87% believe that the likely Republican nominee is at least somewhat likely to beat Obama in November.
Assuming Romney wins in South Carolina, a win in Florida is almost assured. With numbers like this, don’t be surprised to see more GOP figures lining up behind Romney in an attempt to unify the party early and aim its rhetorical guns at Team Obama. That might be why John Bolton endorsed Romney late yesterday:
John Bolton, George W. Bush’s controversial Ambassador to the United Nations, will endorse Mitt Romney tonight, a Romney supporter told BuzzFeed.Bolton tweeted earlier this evening that he plans to make a major announcement on Fox News’s “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren.”
And while Jim DeMint has been careful to remain neutral, his advisors are climbing aboard Team Mitt, too:
A group of loyalists to South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint – including a top fundraiser for Rick Perry – will publicly endorse Mitt Romney’s presidential bid on Thursday, a source confirmed to CNN.Former South Carolina GOP Chairman Barry Wynn, Columbia businessman and fundraiser Peter Brown, and Columbia attorney Kevin Hall will announce their support for Romney Thursday.
Wynn’s move to Romney is striking. The Spartanburg financial adviser is a member of Perry’s finance team and traveled to Texas in August to meet privately with the governor before he announced his bid.
Jeb Bush will probably wait for South Carolina to vote, but I’d bet that he will endorse Romney shortly afterward.
“The recent endorsements [Bolton, Todd Palin, et al] have been great helps to Romney.”
Todd Palin did not endorse Romney. Bolton did.
Remember that Florida, unlike South Carolina, is not a Southern state.
Newt is and has always been since Palin opted out and Cain’s past unzipped the only one that can possibly beat Romney....and strictly through strength of personality
His only chance is if the others drop out and do it sooner rather than later.
Then it will be framed by the media as Newt versus Mitt with Paul as Sir Flake.
Then the chips will simply just fall and it will still be tough...Romney is rich, slick as his Brylcreem and has whatever conservative media talk there is behind him except Levin and Savage.
The Beltway GOP have frontloaded the primaries where their guy...the best funded...usually wins and wins quick.
Romney if he beats Obama will be even more frustrating than Bush II and likely as bad or worse than Bush the Elder.
Some of you need to realize the polls can change a lot between SC and Florida.
At the same time, every conservative but one MUST drop out IMMEDIATELY after SC. Not shortly, not wait a week to mull it over. IMMEDIATELY withdraw and throw the support to the best-polling conservatives.
It’s that simple.
I don’t think it will be too late by that point. If you wait to drop out until Florida, it likely will be too late.
A month ago, sure. Now? He’s been in freefall.
FL Rasmussen Poll: Romney 41, Gingrich 19, Santorum 15
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Turn out the lights; the party’s over.
So if Santorum wins in SC, like he did in Iowa, you’re going to back him?
The problem is you simply can’t accept, to be blunt, that you aren’t everyone else.
What is more plausible?
1) A giant conspiracy rigging dozens of polling groups from private companies to colleges and universities, and linking those results to completely fraudulent and rigged actual elections.
2) There are enormous numbers of people that don’t agree with you, and don’t remotely see the world or think like you do, and they greatly outnumber those that do.
He already BEAT Romney in IOWA!
And he runs 55-35 vs Romney head to head!
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Santorum was at 2-3 percent a month ago. 14 percent is ‘fading’?
Look, Santorum performs much better vs Romney than Newt fares against him. Newt will still lose even if it were just him vs Romney.
The only way we blow Romney out of the water is to run Santorum.
This is very fluid and the voters are very fickle.
Just a month ago Gingrich had a huge lead in Florida.
Translation more dead people voting just like in NH.
We have a closed primary and have to show ID but absentee is the way they’re looking at.
Throw a few bum polls out there and presto, no one questions the results.
Ok, go down with that momentum train to Florida and then you can admit I was right and you were wrong....
But it will be too late.
Gingrich is the only one that is tough enough to take on the entire media and GOP E...
I don't care what he's saying. If he's not telling his supporters to vote for Gingrich, he's just taking votes away from him, and helping Romney.
Walk the walk, Rick.
There was a primary where Gerald Ford and Reagan were competing for the top spot. I don’t have all the numbers, but Ford won I believe the first 5 states. Reagan won the next two. Ford won the next two. Then Reagan started a rout. So, while it looks great for Romney, nothing is locked up yet. Mark Levin spoke of this yesterday and it was brilliant.
Romney can only be beaten now if Perry pulls out before the voting day in SC and maybe Newt drops out to hurt Romney.
If Newt really wants to beat RINO then drop out and throw your support behind Rick where maybe Newt can go on and be VP for dropping out.
If the conservative vote is split then RINO wins it is that basic and we LOSE.
That Florida poll is meaningless coming prior to the SC election.
Gingrich will win SC and run into Florida with momentum...if Santorum is defeated in SC and gets out...Gingrich wins.
NH doesn’t have an open primary— “undeclareds” have to choose to declare as a Republican and be registered as such at the polling place and then unregister afterward if they don’t want to be registered as Republicans.
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