With the Florida primary set for January 31, the Romney and Gingrich camps are competing to set the stage for the coming contest. With Mitt Romney opening up a wide lead in Florida — by up to 15 percentage points in the latest NBC/Marist poll — the two camps are trying to shape the narrative and explain what a likely Romney win in Florida really means.
The Romney camp is looking to capitalize on a win in the Sunshine State by framing the race as crucial to becoming the nominee. “I think it means perhaps even more than it did in 2008 because you’ve got a split between New Hampshire and South Carolina,” said Romney-surrogate Sen. John McCain on Meet the Press. “So, it’s a vital race here and I’m glad to see Mitt’s doing so well.”
There to speak for Gingrich was surrogate former Sen. Fred Thompson, who downplayed the importance of the Florida primary as his own candidate heads toward what looks to be a loss on Tuesday. To the Newt camp, the magnitude of Romney’s win in Florida should be compared to Gingrich’s 13-point win in South Carolina. “You know, in South Carolina Newt won practically every, every group there except those with higher incomes and those with advanced degrees,” said Thompson. Finally, he said, “If it’s a victory for Mitt, we’ll break it down and see what it means. But it’s probably about 10% of the delegates.”
This is the big takeaway from the Gingrich campaign: Florida isn’t symbolic or important; it’s about the delegate count. And in terms of adding up delegates, Newt won’t be far behind without Florida. Gingrich, making the rounds on the morning shows Sunday, made the same case.
“But the fact is, this race is going to go on. The conservatives clearly are rejecting Romney. He is nowhere near getting a majority. And the fact is, once you get beyond Florida, these are all proportional representation states, and he’s not going to be anywhere near a majority by April,” Gingrich explained to ABC’s Jake Tapper Sunday morning. “And so this is going to go on all the way to the convention.”
Florida’s 50 delegates are allocated on a winner-take-all basis and would make up about 5% of the delegates necessary to reach the magic number of 1144 by the time of the convention. But as has been noted, it’s very possible that the winner-take-all status will be contested; the fight for Florida’s delegates is not likely to end Tuesday.
After Tuesday, Romney will likely walk a way with a big win. But Gingrich is already defining the primary as a long battle to shore up a grassroots conservative base against “Mitt Romney’s liberalism” — setting expectations of a long battle for the soul of the party. Whether Gingrich will be able to fund that battle, and whether the party ranks firmly close around Romney, will be critical things to watch in the days after Florida.
