Within the Margin

I’ve been a bit absorbed in studying the proposed New York state legislative maps of late, but let me take a look at the state of play as the Republican nominating contest gives Romney a big win in Florida today. My questions:

• Does Romney crack 50% in Florida? Polling tells me he’s going to come close, and in fact I’ll predict he hits 50 on the nose. New Hampshire was supposed to be a big win for Romney, and while his margin was comfortable, he was held under 40%. Today he should finally get a win that’s impressive in both margin and percentage. Side note: InsiderAdvantage could get away with their pro-Gingrich polling in previous states when things were fluid and we were seeing late-breaking momentum altering the playing field in each state, but they’re going to look somewhat foolish tonight. They keep showing a 4-5 point Romney lead when everyone else shows a 15-20 point edge for Mittens…either IA is doing brilliant work, or they’re about to become completely irrelevant. I strongly assume the latter.

• What sort of momentum does the inevitable big win in Florida portend for Romney? It’s winner-take-all, so he’ll zoom ahead in the delegate count for a little while at least, but Florida’s scheduling shenanigans resulted in the halving of their delegates. So it’s not as important a win on paper as it would have been, but the media loves momentum and I assume they’ll award quite a bit of Big Mo in the aftermath of the Sunshine State’s big day.

• Does Gingrich show signs of holding on to Evangelical/born-again voters? He cleaned up with these groups in South Carolina, confirming that an important part of the Republican base was not climbing aboard the Romney wagon anytime soon. Florida’s primary electorate will include a smaller share of Evangelicals so we won’t have the best information to work with, but it will be interesting to see if they either splinter off to Santorum or start coalescing around Romney.

• Is Santorum still in this thing? Politico reports this morning that he’s heading to Missouri to compete hard in their February 7 primary. It’s a smart play: Gingrich isn’t on the ballot there and Santorum should match up well with a demographic that’s more blue-collar and Roman Catholic than Florida. I assume both candidates will play hard there, with Romney arriving after the Nevada caucuses on February 4. It’s a chance for Santorum to show why he’s a better not-Mitt than Newt, and a chance for Romney to show he can beat a variety of opponents in a one-on-one setting.

• Just what kind of impact can Ron Paul make in the upcoming caucuses? Obviously the assumption is that organization and enthusiasm matter more in caucuses than primaries, and Paul has these in spades. Nevada, Maine, Colorado and Minnesota loom large in determining whether Paul can bring to fruition his dream of bringing a significant contingent of delegates to the convention.