In Florida primary, the margin will matter
With the voting booths scheduled to open tomorrow in Florida, pollsters are all over the place in their predictions about the outcome.
Everybody has Mitt Romney winning. The discrepancy is in the predicted margin, which matters in a primary.
A Suffolk University poll has Romney up by 20, 47 percent to 27 percent. A Quinnipiac poll puts Romney up by 14, 43 percent to 29 percent, up from a nine-point margin a week ago.
But Georgia-based InsiderAdvantage claims the Romney-Gingrich race is tightening, with Romney up by five percentage points, 36-31 percent. Matt Towery, InsiderAdvantage’s founder and owner, has ties to Gingrich, which might be cause for caution. But Public Policy Polling, a Democratic-leaning firm, has it 39-32.
That’s a fairly wide spread this close to an election, which means somebody is going to have egg on their face when this is over. If the tighter projections prove valid, Gingrich has some justification for continuing to fight, perhaps all the way to the convention as he promises.
A margin of 20 points or more, on the other hand, would pretty much spell the end of the race. That’s particularly true if exit polls show Romney beating Gingrich even among conservative Republicans.
Of course, such a defeat doesn’t necessarily mean that an increasingly bitter Gingrich would withdraw from the race. He feels abused and ill-used by his party’s establishment, and he may decide to stick in the race just to be obstinate. Back in the Iowa days, you may remember, Gingrich was trying to convince everyone that he had really changed and was no longer the angry, combative politician he used to be.
That Grandpa Gingrich act didn’t last very long.
– Jay Bookman
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2013 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
334 comments Add your comment
Geo
January 30th, 2012
10:39 pm
Better get some Ensize on line.
Geo
January 30th, 2012
10:40 pm
And a map.
jm
January 30th, 2012
10:42 pm
“I am ready for four more years”
of massive deficits, slow growth, more food stamps, more welfare, more crummy unemployment.
Not I.
getalife is an obama sycophant
Geo
January 30th, 2012
10:43 pm
Nope – he’s a vacuum.
jewcowboy
January 30th, 2012
10:43 pm
jm,
“MLK (and friends) didn’t win the civil rights battle they fought by calling whitey: “honkeys” and “crackers”
Sorry, but you may need to revisit history. The civil rights battle of 60’s did not only involve MLK and friends.
getalife
January 30th, 2012
10:43 pm
cons deserve no respect and that is what you will get .
Got it “twits”?
Grow up jm.
Geo
January 30th, 2012
10:44 pm
Sorry – she’s a vacuum.
jm
January 30th, 2012
10:44 pm
alrighty. enough. I’m out.
Go Mitt.
Believe in America.
jm
January 30th, 2012
10:45 pm
“The civil rights battle of 60’s did not only involve MLK and friends.”
I was using a very expansive definition of “friends”. No kidding. The national mall rally wasn’t an MLK and close friends pow-wow.
Kamchak
January 30th, 2012
10:47 pm
alrighty. enough. I’m out.
Available evidence proves otherwise.
Just sayin’.
yuzeyurbrane
January 30th, 2012
10:50 pm
Let’s split the difference and guess Romney wins by 14. Newt will stay in and will pick up a slew of delegates along the way. Not to mention his personality. Slash and burn has always been his style.
jewcowboy
January 30th, 2012
10:52 pm
jm,
“The national mall rally wasn’t an MLK and close friends pow-wow.”
My point was not quite so literal. You discount people like Malcolm X, and their roles in the civil rights movement. It all wasn’t quite so polite.
Travis McGee
January 30th, 2012
10:59 pm
I don’t care if you’re the most dedicated conservative on the planet and that you’ve voted Republican since Goldwater — you’ll have to admit that your party just can’t field a viable candidate. McCain, Gingrich, Santorum, Romney — Geeeez!
A weak Republican candidate will trump the bad economy and Obama will prevail!
Billybob
January 30th, 2012
11:11 pm
bookman,
you would love for newt to give up……don’t remember you asking hussein to give up after the 4th primary……….love when the libs and lib media try to pick the other party’s candidate………can’t wait until the the general when it will be all about hussein and his socialism/marxism(’fundamental change’)……….can’t wait until you are forced to finally support or not support the socialist……….
getalife
January 30th, 2012
11:40 pm
Speaking of respect, our pols could show some for the people.
Lie to our faces, waste our money, kill our children, corruption and they think they are above the law.
Yeah, enough is enough.
captguitarman
January 31st, 2012
2:48 am
Newt is mad, his ego is hurt, and his wife was put into a bad light by the ex-wife interview with the media making big news out of it. His status as the nice, friendly, and reasonable adult in the race is now long gone, and he didn’t like all the hard ball Romney played in Iowa, and is now playin in Florida. If Romney wins big tomorrow, what will Newt do . . . whatever will he do? Will he stand back and accept that his continued presence will only help Obama win a second term? Yes, he might do that, and monkeys might fly out my butt tomorrow morning. For all his talk about putting America back on track and getting rid of a guy who has shown no leadership and has been in way over his head from day one, Newt’s ego is far more important to him than that. I’m sure that he and his ego cannot believe or accept the fact that as a Con in the Pub party, a moderate Pub is beating him. And it makes him mad . . . mad enough to make sure that Romney doesn’t win election. Newt will not stop, and he may not stop even after the election. He has no prayer of beating Obama and winning a national election . . . only Romney has that chance, and his chances are being reduced every day by all this Pub in-fighting.
Believe me, Newt doesn’t care what happens if he doesn’t win, and Paul is a Libertarian, and Santorum is about 4 to 8 years too early. The Pub establishment must be made up of complete morons to have allowed all of these debates, and most of them with long gone nitwits lie Palin, Perry, and Bachmann. Newt’s continued presence, and the the continuing Pub debates could spell the end of any meaningful Pub chance at regaining the White House in November. Why is it that I know that, but the Pub party leaders have not figured it out yet? Obama is not much of a president and even less as a leader, perhaps one of the worst in history, but Obama is waking up now because it is time to campaign, his one and only talent. Hard to believe, but true.
Normal
January 31st, 2012
6:30 am
Grand Tuesday morning all y’all…
http://news.icanhascheezburger.com/2012/01/30/political-pictures-romney-gingrich-obama-gridiron-classic/
Normal
January 31st, 2012
6:31 am
http://news.icanhascheezburger.com/2012/01/30/political-pictures-eagle-barack-obama-secret-weapon/
Normal
January 31st, 2012
6:32 am
http://news.icanhascheezburger.com/2012/01/30/political-pictures-newt-gingrich-this-guy/
Granny Godzilla
January 31st, 2012
7:07 am
I would has a sad if Newt didn’t go all the way to the convention.
Newt 2012
Holy Crap that’s funny.
Mick
January 31st, 2012
7:47 am
Another reason why I’m an ex-catholic, that church has no shame. They should be more concerned with their predatory, pedofile priests – what a disgrace-
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57368259-503544/catholics-hear-anti-obama-letter-in-church/
GT
January 31st, 2012
8:03 am
I kind of hope we have a horse race in Florida. It is a sign of how unorganized the GOP really is. Romney looks like the school teacher who has lost control of his class as Newt flatten spitballs on the blackboard. It also shows this Republican electric is just too immature to rule a nation. They rather destroy a party than compromise, after they did great damage to our government. These boys need to be contain to a lab and not let out into the environment. A close election in Florida gets us one more step towards the Republican Party self destructing, and with it goes a lot of poison this country needs to purge. Our nation in every way in 2012 is improving, that is what a close election means in Florida.
tireofit
January 31st, 2012
8:07 am
If the republican based is so principled, why are they supporting Mitt the liberal?
williebkind
January 31st, 2012
8:35 am
BORING!!!
Joseph
January 31st, 2012
8:59 am
The margin will be 20+ points Jay so you and your far left ilk can continue your vitriole against Romney and forget all about the other candidates you’ve humerously tried to attack…..
Joseph
January 31st, 2012
9:02 am
The Today Show has already accelerated their attacks on Romney so obviously they think he’ll be the nominee… Bringing up his dog riding in a pet carrier on the roof of the family car 20 years ago while showing a pic of Obama’s dog riding in the tax payer funded limo…. Why didn’t they mention flying the dog all over the country using tax dollars??? They simply left that out……
Joseph
January 31st, 2012
9:05 am
tireofit:
I realize in the mind of a liberal its hard to understand but Romney was Governor of a bright blue state…. he had to govern in the middle. Now he will be President of a dull red country. He’ll be conservative becuase thats who he is…. By the way when a failed President like Obama is the alternative Mickey Mouse would be considered conservative…..
Jay
January 31st, 2012
9:07 am
Actually, Joseph, I’ve argued from the beginning that Romney is the only candidate in the Republican field who is even conceivable as president of the United States.
It’s just taken the conservatives a little while to accept the truth of that assessment, and even so they’re doing it grudgingly.
tireofit
January 31st, 2012
9:20 am
Joseph, great rationalization.
GT
January 31st, 2012
9:25 am
tireofit you got love the Republicans. They get beat by Obama so they dress a black man up, try mightily to cover up this poor character, and bring him out as a 2012 knock off to what they interpret as an answer to Obama. They test drive it and the wheels fall off. The fact that O has been married for decades to the same woman, apparently no affairs,has wonderful children, has his mother in law living with him, who was a very successful woman in her own right and they think any black body equals this man really puts us into the camp of these people’s thinking or lack of it. Seems somehow the far right should be more like O and the far left should be Cain, but the respect for woman is a Democratic thing so that wouldn’t work would it.
Then they pull out a guy who really matches their base, mean, arrogant, loose with the facts and a taste for the finer things in life including the ladies. The problem here is he was a family man that has been married three times, a Christian that was Roman Catholic and a character that had been fined for ethics violations by his own party. A party I might ad that brought us Nixon, so how high can that bar be. It is like one of the Hollywood parties where the bring a corps into the room, put it in a seat, have a cigarette hanging from it’s mouth and half the party doesn’t realize the guy is dead.
In the end they have found the only moderate in the entire party which in itself makes you wonder how many lies this guy has to tell just to make it though the primaries. He is like a gay guy in a straight world or even worse a hookytonk bar of rednecks.
Somewhere is all this I keep waiting for the church to disassociate themselves from these fools before they do irrefutable damage to what use to be a real light in the darkness. As people mutate for their own rewards, the church should be constant. Not only have these people done great damage to our country, they have bombed our churches for their own gain.
Don Abernethy
January 31st, 2012
9:45 am
Romney is nothing more than a liberal Democrat.
Not a Neal Boortz Redneck
January 31st, 2012
9:55 am
Newt is like Tanya Harding and poor little Mitt is his Nancy Kerrigan.
Go Tanya!
ITS ALL BUSHS FAULT
January 31st, 2012
10:06 am
Hey Mitt is the economy better under OBAMA ? Yes
MITT says he wishs he was a latino so he could self deport, awesome….
Paulo977
January 31st, 2012
10:22 am
czpt guitarman :Obama is not much of a president and even less as a leader, perhaps one of the worst in history
___________________________
Ah!! ignorance speaks…what is it with you cons?