Polls earlier this week showed a huge bump for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich after his win in the South Carolina primary. Only days later, the momentum has returned to Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who is again up in the Sunshine State. The question now is whether Romney’s performance in Thursday’s debate, after which many pundits argued he outshone Gingrich, will be enough to hold him through the weekend, as he remains the subject of negative attacks on his business record via a pro-Gingrich super PAC.
New Quinnipiac University polling numbers out Friday morning now show a nine point lead in the state for Romney, who gets 38 percent of the Florida Republican electorate surveyed to Gingrich’s 29, just outside the poll’s margin of error. Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), who has essentially punted on the state, gets 14 and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum sees 12.
More troubling for Gingrich is that he is now splitting the conservative vote nearly evenly in the new data — Gingrich’s surge and win in South Carolina came on the backs of the “very conservative” voting bloc, which has been one of the more fluid groups of voters throughout this campaign cycle. That Romney even competes with Gingrich among conservatives almost guarantees him the most support in the poll: Romney continues to dominate moderate party members in the Quinnipiac poll, which has been consistent through the Republican primary cycle.
“Speaker Newt Gingrich’s momentum from his South Carolina victory appears to have stalled and Gov. Mitt Romney seems to be pulling away in Florida,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute in a release. “Romney also has a better favorability rating from likely primary voters, which supports his lead in the horse race.”
Indeed, Romney seems to be finishing strong in Florida, and while most voters will cast their ballots on the official January 31st primary date, Romney’s campaign has also run a strong early voting campaign, urging supporters to mail in their ballot ahead of time. If Romney wins handily on election day itself as well, he could have a large margin of victory.
Our current TPM Poll Average shows Romney with a 9.3 percent lead in the state.
The Quinnipiac poll used 580 live telephone interviews with likely Florida Republican primary voters conducted January 24th through the 26th. It has a sampling error of 4.1 percent.
