Mitt Romney took control of the GOP Florida primary on Tuesday garnering 44.6% of the vote. Newt Gingrich posted a second place finish with 31.9%.
UPDATE: Wednesday Feb 1, 2012--- When the votes were tallied, the Florida voters who pushed Mitt Romney to his second primary victory, were concentrated in a few metropolitan areas of south and central parts of the state.
Newt Gingrich won the vast majority of counties in Florida's Panhandle and the northern areas of the state. The saying goes that the farther north you go in Florida, the farther south you are, because that part of the state votes more like deep south states of Alabama and Mississippi.
With Super Tuesday approaching when more conservative southern states go to the polls, Gingrich seems to believe he has the wind at his back. His Tuesday night speech was not one of concession but of looking into the future of what Day One of a Gingrich presidency would look like.
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Florida GOP primary results were quick in coming after polls closed in Florida. NBC News, among others is reporting a strong showing for the recently embattled Mitt Romney.
When all polls closed, Romney had garnered 47% of the vote to Newt Gingrich's 32%, with Rick Santorum coming in third with 13% of the vote and Ron Paul in single-digits.
The Newt Gingrich campaign has pledged to fight on to the GOP convention, but has also said it was likely to support whoever the GOP nominee will be.
It was only ten days ago at the conclusion of the GOP South Carolina primary, that Newt Gingrich stood at the podium during a victory speech and made it seem that he would be the GOP presidential nominee to run against President Barack Obama.
His message carried the day in South Carolina and it included a Romney-bashing technique that called his opponent's integrity into question. Gingrich scored points by pointing to Romney's reluctance to open up his tax returns for public view.
The former Speaker characterized Romney as closer to a Democrat than a conservative Republican and Mr. Gingrich zeroed in on Mr. Romney's flip-flopping about the Massachusetts state health care reform plan as well as his positions on abortion and same sex marriage.
Mitt Romney heard the call of voters to release his tax returns and the in his post-primary speech, accepting the will of the GOP voters in South Carolina pledged to do so. He was as good as his word and within 48 hours his federal tax returns were released. The problem for Gingrich is that it didn't make a bit of difference in the state of Florida.
Mitt Romney not only rebounds from the sound defeat in South Carolina with this victory, he overcomes other bad news that saw him become the second-place finisher in the Iowa caucuses, after recounts were completed.
In the ten days between South Carolina and Florida votes, the candidates debated twice more and the sniping between Gingrich and Romney was fierce. What Mr. Romney learned was that voters need to hear him on the offensive against his opponents, not hanging back as if he were the presumptive nominee.
Offensive was the word to describe the attacks ads on television and radio as well as in the Florida debates, as Mitt Romney took apart Mr. Gingrich's record as Speaker of the House of Representatives in the 1990's as well as the money deals he had with Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae.
Gingrich signed lucrative consulting deals that he refused to describe in any detail, other than to say he was paid to advise the entities on historical matters. Once the contract terms were released and the fees topped $1 million, Florida voters learned that Mr. Gingrich might have as many ties to financial institutions in the country as Mitt Romney.
NBC News is reporting tonight that in a exit poll conducted today, in which Florida voters were asked if they believed that illegal immigrants deserved a pathway to citizenship, fully one-third of those that responded said yes.
In a turnabout from 2008, the number of voters who said that illegal workers should be deported declined from 40% of polled voters to 31%. It appears that on that issue, pollsters were able to see how Mitt Romney scored a big victory.
Florida GOP primary results will continue to trickle in as the hour gets later but it is unlikely at this point that Newt Gingrich will overcome Mitt Romney.
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