Wiki page here, Politico here, only interesting news so far is that Jeb Bush refuses to endorse anybody. Candidates will debate Monday January 23 (a number of great significance) at 9pm at USF here in Tampa. The Tampa Bay Times says Romney’s leading in the polls by 18 points.
Any idea when we can expect the first post-South Carolina polls to come out?
You must have been afraid that someone might start a thread about the Florida primary that included their own thoughts on the topic.
I think it’ll be a narrow Romney win once he starts to better in debates and Newt loses ground for his lobbying fast and his own support for OBamacare. That followed by steady Romney victories over the next month (most of the caucauses and primaries favour him) and Gingrich gets knocked out in March.
Insider Advantage has a poll out already, taken solely today.
Gingrich 34, Romney 26.
Nate Silver put them in the middle of the pack in 2010.
If Gingrich gets a bounce from SC, which I’m assuming he will, that bounce is probably in this poll.
But the swing is enormous. Wow.
ETA: Oops, I was looking at 538’s ranking in 2008. In 2010, IA did very poorly. No idea about now.
Why do you think he’ll get better in debates? Romney is quite good in debates when no one is pressing him, and quite petulant when someone is. Do you expect Gingrich to ease up on him?
The dude’s been running for president for six years now (it only seems like since the 1936 election), I should think his debating is about as good as it gets. He does fine if nobody gets under his skin, when someone does, he comes across as an asshole.
The dynamics are quite interesting here, Newt will get a bounce from SC, will the Santorum crowd smell the coffee and decide to put their money on the only viable un-Romney? Who has the best chance to woo the sizeable Hispanic popuation? Will Romney get his ass handed to him in the debate? Will the tax return make Romney look like a freeloader? Will it ever be possible to deprogram Paul supporters? Just when we thought that the coronation of Romney would be all but official, someone yells “fire” to the circular firing squad. Fun times.
According to Wikipedia, Florida is supposed to have 99 delegates but, because they’re breaking the rules by having an early primary, they’re getting docked down to 50.
But, it also says that Florida is assigning the delegates as “Winner takes all” unlike all the other GOP primaries before April. They’re supposed to be assigned proportionally.
So, right now the pledged delegate count is 27 for Gingrich and 14 for Romney. But that would become 77-14 or 27-64 after Florida with a string of proportional win primaries (so little chance of quickly closing the gap) for the next couple months. There’s superdelegates as well so maybe we’ll get some 2008 Democratic primary math where one candidate is all about counting them and the other not-so-much.
Rasmussen released results this morning with +9 for Gingrich as well.
Rasmussen confirms Gingrich bounce from SC.
Florida GOP Primary: Gingrich 41%, Romney 32%
Does the RNC have super-delegates? I thought that was just the DNC.
Mitt must be pining for the Utah primary…
Michigan and Nevada are next up, right? Romney should have the edge there. This may not be over until well after Super Tuesday. Maybe well after.
I was in church yesterday and my priest is a Canadian, so he’s been watching the whole process with fascination. He pulled me aside with wide eyes and said “How could the people of South Carolina voted for Gingrich?!” He was flabbergasted. It was pretty funny.*
*well, for certain definitions of funny.
I would think Newt would do better in the open primaries as the Dems probably feel they would destroy him. Florida, however, is closed, so it would be pretty significant if Newt hangs on for a win.
On the other hand, moderate independents who might have voted for Romney are shut out of the FL primary if they’re not registered Republicans.
He’ll be pining for a while then. Utah’s primary is the very last this year. June 26.
That’s gotta hurt…
Nevada does, however, have a large Mormon population.
Tennessee has an open primary on Super Tuesday. I might just vote for whoever is behind in the delegate count, just to try to drag it out. 
Unless of course there are any significant local races on the Democratic ballot.
Middle and lower class Republican voters are not gonna vote for Romney because Romney is clearly part of the money machine that fucked everything over in 2008 and promises to continue to do that. It’s about the economy and jobs, and middle class folks, EVEN REPUBLICAN MIDDLE CLASS FOLKS don’t believe that Wall Street guys like Romney are gonna do anything but continue to loot the middle class as efficiently as they can. They are like progressives among the Democrats, desperate for an alternative. Unlike Democratic progressives, who are pretty much stuck with Obama as the least awful of a horrible lot, they have alternatives. Crummy alternatives, but alternatives.
Romney going down in flames.