Mitt Romney, who gathered his Florida team months ago and is flush with cash, has a big head start when it comes to organization in the Sunshine State. But Newt Gingrich’s campaign is conceding nothing, arguing that their own well-staffed operation can more than hold its own.
On paper, Gingrich’s operation is certainly robust. He actually has more paid staff than Romney in the state, 14 versus 5, and expects to have 7 campaign offices open by Tuesday’s final vote, versus 5 for Romney. The campaign claims to have at least 5,000 volunteers and is generating some excitement among Tea Party groups, including a number of local organizers who previously worked on Herman Cain’s campaign.
In interviews, Gingrich volunteers described a late explosion of grassroots activity after the South Carolina debate, in which Gingrich excoriated the press over questions surrounding his marriage, and Newt’s subsequent double-digit victory over Romney.
“It’s a late bloomer,” Dr. J. Patrick Fuller, a precinct captain for Gingrich in Brevard County, said of the local operation. “It was building before South Carolina, but that was the jewel on the cake — Newt ought to buy [debate moderator] John King a steak dinner.”
Ruth Waters, a volunteer in Melbourne, FL, told TPM she made her decision to support Gingrich around the time of the South Carolina debate, which also inspired her to begin making calls out of the campaign’s nearby office. Still, she notes that Romney’s campaign and its Super PAC have been much more active in reaching out to her with direct mail and phone calls — most of which attack Gingrich.
Ask any Florida politico what the secret to a successful campaign is and you’d get the same answer: money. The state is too huge for Iowa-style retail politicking, meaning a candidate who can’t blitz the airwaves with ads is in deep trouble. There’s no doubt Romney has more cash, but while his campaign and independent Super PAC have spent over $10 million on advertising, the Adelson family-funded Super PAC supporting Newt will at least keep the Speaker from being totally dominated: they just announced a $6 million ad buy.
Meanwhile, Florida officials aren’t even sure if the old rules of money and organization still hold in a 2012 race that seems to operate with its own set of physics.
“It’s a unique year,” Florida GOP chair Lenny Curry told TPM. “You still need money to play on TV and Super PACs, but the debates I think can play a huge difference. I don’t think any of us expected that.”
Romney has drawn praise from strategists for his well-organized effort to corral early and absentee voters, who form a major portion of the primary’s expected overall vote. Some observers have suggested that he may be tough to beat given that many of them filled out their ballot before Gingrich’s late surge. But Gingrich’s campaign denies they’re behind there.
“That’s why we were doing mail and doing tele-town halls while we were still in South Carolina, talking to absentee voters. It’s something we’ve been chasing after,” Newt spokesman RC Hammond said. “We have a very aggressive ground game here…I think we’re in very good shape.”
Still, the campaign is reluctant to set expectations too high.
“Any candidate against Mitt Romney is going to be at a disadvantage because he has the Daddy Warbucks war chest he raised from Wall Street,” Hammond told TPM “But every time we go into a state we do everything we can to win it.”
