Does this mean that the teabagger/evangelicals have jumped on the Romney bandwagon? Not at all. The most conservative areas of Florida voted for Gingrich, and exit polls showed that 41% of those who voted don't think Romney is conservative enough (while another 40% would like to see a new candidate enter the race). These people still don't trust Romney and don't want to support him.
The truth is that Romney spent a fortune in Wall Street money to win in Florida -- about $15.9 million. The Gingrich camp was only able to spend about $4 million. That means Romney outspent Gingrich by $12 million dollars. That's huge, especially considering that in 2008 John McCain spent only $11 million in all 50 states in his primary campaign. It looks like Romney has decided if he can't win the hearts of Republicans, maybe he can at least buy their support.
Romney's continuing failure to make inroads with the teabagger/evangelical base of the Republican Party could spell trouble for him down the line. On Super Tuesday, a lot of Southern States will be voting, and they are a lot closer to the South Carolina Republicans than the Florida Republicans. If Gingrich can avoid cratering before March, he could pick up a lot of delegates on Super Tuesday.
Romney may have the momentum again, but he does not yet have the nomination. Next up is a few caucus states. Ron Paul has proven in the past to be able to turn out large numbers of his supporters in caucuses, and if he does that again in the next couple of weeks, he could really help Gingrich by keeping Romney's delegate numbers down.
Here are the Florida results:
Mitt Romney...............771,842 (46.39%)
Newt Gingrich...............531,294 (31.94%)
Rick Santorum...............222,248 (13.36%)
Ron Paul...............116,776 (7.02%)
Rick Perry...............6,742 (0.41%)
Jon Huntsman...............6,182 (0.37%)
Michele Bachmann...............3,947 (0.24%)
Herman Cain...............3,481 (0.21%)
Gary Johnson...............1,186 (0.07%)
TOTAL VOTES...............1,663,698
Here is the current delegate total according to msnbc.com:
Mitt Romney...............70
Newt Gingrich...............23
Rick Santorum...............11
Ron Paul...............6
This election is going to suck.
ReplyDeleteWe have Romney - who the Republicans don't like - and Obama - who the Democrats are less than excited about.
Wall Street has chosen two candidates and now hope that the masses are stupid enough to convince themselves there's a difference between them. And we'll all get in line, screaming about how the election of the OTHER Wall Street candidate would = the end of the world.
And the Super-PACs this time out are making it crystal clear who controls America.
Argh.