Posted on 01/31/2012 1:58:24 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Raleigh, N.C. – PPP's second day of tracking in Florida finds little change in the state of the race. Mitt Romney leads with 39% to 32% for Newt Gingrich with Rick Santorum at 14% and Ron Paul at 11%. Romney and Santorum are both down a single point from Saturday's polling while Paul has gained 2 points and Gingrich has stayed in place.
The reason we don't find Gingrich getting blown out by a double digit margin in Florida is that he's winning a lot of the same groups he did in South Carolina. He's up 37-33 with Evangelicals, 40-33 with Tea Partiers, and 36-29 with voters who describe themselves as 'very conservative.' The problem for him is that he's not winning those groups by the same kinds of margins that he did in the Palmetto State.
Romney continues to have a large lead in the bank in Florida. 34% of our respondents said they'd already voted and with those folks he has a 45-33 lead. That puts Gingrich in a position where he'd have to not only win the election day vote, but win it by 6 or 7 points to upset Romney in the state. The kind of reversal necessary to make that happen seems unlikely to occur in the next 48 hours.
Almost Romney's entire lead in Florida is coming from moderate voters. He has a 58-15 lead over Gingrich with them and only a 1 point advantage with the rest of the electorate.
Other groups that continue to be a particular source of strength for Romney are seniors (48-32) and women (43-30).
“Mitt Romney is holding steady in our Florida polling,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “It looks like the main suspense in the state is whether he’ll win by single digits or double digits. Right now he’s pretty close to that line.”
We will have one final night of Florida tracking tomorrow, which will likely be posted between 10 and 11 PM. PPP surveyed 733 likely Republican primary voters on January 28th and January 29th. The margin of error for the survey is +/-3.6%. This poll was not paid for or authorized by any campaign or political organization. PPP surveys are conducted through automated telephone interviews. PPP is a Democratic polling company, but polling expert Nate Silver of the New York Times found that its surveys in 2010 actually exhibited a slight bias toward Republican candidates.
Thanks! I will go vote for Newt this morning and then phone bank for him later. Tally Ho!!!
Nice job sheikdetailfeather!
Thank you, FReeper.
Interesting. 49% believe Romney has the best chance of beating Obama, but only 39% are polling as voting for him.
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