I've been running some numbers on Florida to get an idea of what we might expect.

A starting point is the South Carolina exit poll. From that poll, we know what percentage of what type of voter each candidate won in South Carolina. Particularly I paid attention to the ideology of the voters (very conservative, somewhat conservative, moderate, somewhat liberal, or very liberal).

South Carolina's electorate was as follows:
Very liberal - 2%
Somewhat liberal - 7%
Moderate - 23%
Somewhat conservative - 32%
Very conservative - 36%

Compare this to the Florida electorate from the 2008 primary:
Very liberal - 2%
Somewhat liberal - 8%
Moderate - 28%
Somewhat conservative - 34%
Very conservative - 27%

As everyone knows and can see from these numbers, Florida is less conservative than South Carolina. If you plug-in the SC results into the Florida electorate (ex. giving Gingrich 48% of very conservative voters, Santorum 23% of them, Romney 19% of them etc for all groups), then this is the result you get:

Florida:
Gingrich 38%
Romney 28%
Santorum 16%
Paul 13%


What this all means is that the Florida electorate isn't that far off from the South Carolina electorate. This makes sense. Gingrich led Florida polls in December by 15-30 points.


Anything can happen in politics in 10 days, but based on all this you have to call Gingrich the odds on favorite in Florida despite what the pundits say.

I had an earlier post where I talked about this, and I mentioned how absurd it was for the Fox commentators to conclude that Florida was going to be vastly different than SC. I mean let's get real, this is Florida, it is NOT Vermont

If you use a different question from the exit poll, whether a voter answered yes or no to being an evangelical christian or not, then you get this result:

Gingrich 36%
Romney 33%
Paul 14%
Santorum 13%

Wow, great post EricB. Thanks for crunching and posting those numbers too. I didn't think it would be that far off either. Will be interesting to see what unfolds as the days go on...

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"I've always believed the mission is greater than the man..." -Governor Rick Perry
"We're not choosing a pastor-in-chief, we're choosing a commander-in-chief." -Pastor Michael Youssef

Thanks for the analysis and I hope Newt Gingrich blows Romney off another state map!!!

For anyone that wants to see the final South Carolina State Map:
http://www.cnn.com/election/2012/primaries/county/map/r/sc

I thought Liz Cheney had some good advice for the Santorum campaign today. She pointed out that Florida was winner take-all, and that Santorum was most likely not going to be able to challenge for 1st. So rather than waste resources in such an expensive state he should look ahead to more favorable states. It could be argued that Santorum may have spent too much energy on NH, thus raising expectations, and then being diminished in the next state to follow.

Nice work EricB.

The five "X" factors I can see are:

the effect of Romney's ground game in getting in absentee ballots already from when Romney was outpolling Gingrich significantly in the state (those polls implies far more "conservative" voters "can" vote for Romney in Florida than a pure Ideological extrapolation from SC would imply). That could be 10-15% of the vote total already in which moves could well move the numbers significantly (though I tend to think early absentee just locks in your core supporters early and you don't gain much - but at least they can't change their minds).

the effect of the debates which have shaken up the field multiple times already.

the effect of the "frontrunner" scrutiny on Newt as he did not bear up well under it just a month ago.

the effect of the absence of clothes for Emperor Romney. Having only won one primary in his home state has serious exposed the naked truth of his weakness as a candidate.

the effect of the "Opposition Research" that is about to be fully dumped into the fray (and evidently from recent posts this forum).

If everything stays the same over the next eleven days your results seem very plausible. But when in this race has everything stayed the same for eleven days?

_________________
"As for us, our days of combat are over. Our swords are rust. Our guns will thunder no more. The vultures that once wheeled over our heads must be buried with their prey. Whatever of glory must be won in the council or the closet, never again in the field. I do not repine. We have shared the incommunicable experience of war; we have felt, we still feel, the passion of life to its top."

Oliver Wendell Holmes

That is exactly what Ron Paul is doing. They are strategically looking for delegates and have a great ground operation.

The last thing I also thought of is that "self-identification" of ideology is very subjective and regional/locally/demographically influenced.

Self ID "liberals" in AR are no where nearly as liberal in their actual policy positions and candidate choices as MA. Self ID "Moderates" in ME don't vote like those in AL.

Still it's all we've got till the polls start digesting SC.

_________________
"As for us, our days of combat are over. Our swords are rust. Our guns will thunder no more. The vultures that once wheeled over our heads must be buried with their prey. Whatever of glory must be won in the council or the closet, never again in the field. I do not repine. We have shared the incommunicable experience of war; we have felt, we still feel, the passion of life to its top."

Oliver Wendell Holmes

That might be true but if he "goes dark" in Florida it will be even harder to stay alive and pop-up on Super Tuesday. In wasn't proportional in 2008 and Huck being thought to have given-up and left Florida was really the last gasp of his hope to win not withstanding the heroic effort to fight on and achieve significant victories.

I also doubt Santorum will go up much on paid media so the cost won't be that much of a factor. He'll work the free media, debates, and the stump hoping to be physically close enough to any stumbled candidate to gain a step or two.

The delegate hunt is important which is why the GOP actually saying they will enforce the 50% penalty on Florida delegates (they will have 50 delegates or 4.78% of what you need to get the nomination) this makes the race more a place to achieve or lose momentum by over/under achieving than an actual all or nothing delegate haul.

He has to fight it out or he sinks out of sight.

_________________
"As for us, our days of combat are over. Our swords are rust. Our guns will thunder no more. The vultures that once wheeled over our heads must be buried with their prey. Whatever of glory must be won in the council or the closet, never again in the field. I do not repine. We have shared the incommunicable experience of war; we have felt, we still feel, the passion of life to its top."

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Mitt said RS was going to tell personal stories about Newt and Mitt is going after his character. Then theres Curt Cameron acting like a Romney spokesmodel. It angers me that Mike keeps bringing up what Newt said about dropping out of the race but I didnt hear him say a word when people were saying Newt and Perry should drop out. How does Newt have a chance to win with everyone in the media against him? I am so mad at RS that I would never vote for him. He is making this way too personal and its obvious just how low he will go to win. My husband just switched from RS to Newt.There is no doubt in my mind that if RS drops out,he will back Romney again.

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If Santorum were to endorse Mitt after making the statement on the debates he would choose Newt as his vp then he will really look bad. And, after he has publically stated comments about Mitt being liberal (doing more than Ted KEnnedy for gays, 50.00 abortion on health care, etc) he would look as bad as Tim Pawlenty does to back Mitt. I can't see it...

I lived in FL for 14 years, from 1970 - 1984. It was a much more conservative state back then. We lived in Coral Springs sandwiched between Boca Raton and Fort Lauderdale. It had small town atmosphere and people were conservatives. Since then the snowbirds have taken up residence and have brought their liberal viewpoints with them. Now moderates, independents and liberals populate from West Palm Beach to Key West. SW area of Naples has a high percentage of retired people. The state is going more and more liberal in my view.

I would speculate that with so many floridians having family in the northeast that it would favor Romney. Gingrich is really going to have to do extremely well from a line from Tampa to Daytona Beach and northward and absolutely claim the pandhandle.

Well Rick Perry managed to endorse Newt after saying to his face in a debate that, "A man that will cheat on his wife will cheat on his business partner," so I guess anything's possible.

That one surprised me but most of the Newt supporters were willing to forgive him for the seeming hypocrisy of it since he had seen the light.

_________________
"As for us, our days of combat are over. Our swords are rust. Our guns will thunder no more. The vultures that once wheeled over our heads must be buried with their prey. Whatever of glory must be won in the council or the closet, never again in the field. I do not repine. We have shared the incommunicable experience of war; we have felt, we still feel, the passion of life to its top."

Oliver Wendell Holmes

I wouldn't suggest Santorum go dark in Florida, but what I would suggest is after the debate Monday for Santorum to make some appearances in Ohio and Michigan and talk about manufacturing and jobs. That tells people he is looking ahead and at the same time lowering expectations for Florida.

If he leaves they will "Hannity" him that he is abandoning his effort there and his numbers will fold as the "don't waste your anti-Romney vote" meme sweeps all before it.

_________________
"As for us, our days of combat are over. Our swords are rust. Our guns will thunder no more. The vultures that once wheeled over our heads must be buried with their prey. Whatever of glory must be won in the council or the closet, never again in the field. I do not repine. We have shared the incommunicable experience of war; we have felt, we still feel, the passion of life to its top."

Oliver Wendell Holmes

I'll be anxious to see where Santorum is at in the polls Monday and Tuesday. If he's in the 15% range then it might be worthwhile to go all in and see if he can finish a stronger 3rd. If it's in single digits though it might be worthwhile to look ahead. I wonder if in hindsight the campaign wishes they had spent less time in NH and more in SC giving the impression that SC was what was going to really matter and NH not so much.

If he finishes in single digits in Florida his campaign is over (unless he holds in less than formal "suspend my campaign" mode hoping for some kind of suicidal campaign destroying act by Newt or Romney during Feb.).

Therefore if he's in single digits next week he will be forced to go "all in."

_________________
"As for us, our days of combat are over. Our swords are rust. Our guns will thunder no more. The vultures that once wheeled over our heads must be buried with their prey. Whatever of glory must be won in the council or the closet, never again in the field. I do not repine. We have shared the incommunicable experience of war; we have felt, we still feel, the passion of life to its top."

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Looks like the first poll out from Insider Advantage in FL is pretty close to the numbers I came up with.

well done.

HA - always ahead of the curve

_________________
"As for us, our days of combat are over. Our swords are rust. Our guns will thunder no more. The vultures that once wheeled over our heads must be buried with their prey. Whatever of glory must be won in the council or the closet, never again in the field. I do not repine. We have shared the incommunicable experience of war; we have felt, we still feel, the passion of life to its top."

Oliver Wendell Holmes