Mitt Romney’s big win re-establishes him as the frontrunner and odds-on favorite to win the nomination. After his setback in South Carolina, he needed to come out fighting, and that’s exactly what he did. After Newt Gingrich jumped ahead of him immediately after South Carolina, Romney began to use his advantage in funding to pound Gingrich in the media. It didn’t take long for Romney to regain his lead and begin expanding it. It also helped that, unlike in South Carolina, Romney performed well in both of the Florida debates. He now hopes to dominate the seven contests in February, beginning with Nevada on Saturday, where he turned in his best performance of 2008 with 51% of the vote. Wins in all or most of the February contests would give him a head of steam going into Super Tuesday the first week in March.
Newt Gingrich was unable to duplicate his South Carolina magic, finishing a distant second in Florida, 14 percentage points behind Romney. In spite of this fact, he says he’s in the race all the way to the convention and insists that he will still be the nominee. With the much larger media markets than South Carolina, Florida was an extremely more difficult place for Gingrich to compete with Romney’s money advantage. He also hurt himself in both of the Florida debates with lackluster performances. The momentum he gained from South Carolina didn’t last for more than about two days in Florida, although Romney’s lead never quite returned to its pre-South Carolina levels. If there’s one bright spot for Gingrich, it’s that the gap between he and Romney was obviously much smaller on primary day than it was in the absentee and early voting, where Romney held a nearly 22-point advantage. In order to have something to tide him over during the three-week hiatus in the middle of the month, Gingrich will need to win one or more of the five contests in early February.
Rick Santorum finished a distant third, but he didn’t spend much time in Florida, other than coming there for the two debates. He chose instead to campaign in some of the states which hold their contests in early February. Speaking of the debates, Santorum did get lots of accolades for his performance in the second one. However, it didn’t seem to do him much good at the polls in Florida. He will likely hang in there, at least in the near future. He is hoping to perform well enough in upcoming states like Missouri, Minnesota, and Colorado to stay in the race through Super Tuesday. But he’ll have to start winning (or at least coming in a close second) somewhere soon or his funds will dry up and force him out before he ever gets there.
Ron Paul’s fourth-place finish with just 7% of the vote was by far his worst performance so far, but like Santorum, he pretty much skipped Florida. While Romney and Gingrich were battling it out in Florida, Paul was campaigning in Maine and Nevada, the sites of the first two caucuses in February. Paul even seems confident that he might be able to actually win in Maine. He also hopes to be very competitive in the Nevada, Colorado, and Minnesota caucuses. He still insists that he’s in the race to the end.
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