Florida

Here we go again. Another Republican surges up out of the pack to challenge Mitt Romney’s grip on the party’s presidential nomination. Meanwhile, President Obama appears to have helped his rivals with a bad political call forcing Catholic institutions to go against their basic beliefs and pay for contraception.

In a survey taken Monday evening, Romney reclaimed the lead in the national race for the Republican presidential nomination, jumping ahead of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich 34% to 27%. Former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum earned 18% of the vote, and Texas Congressman Ron Paul ran last with 11%.

Then the following day Santorum won the trifecta, sweeping caucuses in Minnesota and Colorado and a non-binding primary in Missouri. His numbers nationally and in other states began to move, reinforcing that Romney has yet to seal the deal with many Republican voters. Still, 75% of those voters predicted early in the week that Romney will be the ultimate nominee, but it will be interesting to see if Romney holds on to the leads he has in the next primary states of Arizona and Michigan.

In Florida as in Ohio and among voters nationally, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum now runs slightly stronger against President Obama than Republican front-runner Mitt Romney. Obama is essentially even with Santorum in the Sunshine State but leads Romney by three points. 

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Voters in Florida shows Obama earning 47% support to Santorum's 46%. Four percent (4%) prefer some other candidate, and four percent (4%) remain undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

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The survey of 500 Likely Voters in Florida was conducted on February 9, 2012 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 4.5 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology. 

Mitt Romney’s victory in Florida put him back on top as the clear frontrunner in the race for the GOP nomination. Rasmussen Reports and others had accurately projected  Romney’s victory in advance but the fact that he got more votes than Gingrich and Santorum combined still caught many observers off guard.

Romney is expected to win big in Nevada today and has leads in the next two primary states—Michigan  and Arizona.  A commentary by Larry Sabato and his colleagues, however, suggests, that the race for the Republican nomination is unlikely to end any time soon. Michael Barone adds that Romney Faces Tough Opponents in a Long War.

Rasmussen Reports has begun daily tracking of the possible Obama-Romney match-up and is updating numbers for other GOP candidates on a rotating basis.

Mitt Romney's convincing victory in the Florida primary erased his earlier defeats and perhaps any serious obstacle to his nomination. The question that still troubles party leaders, however, is the damage he will sustain before returning to Tampa in September for their convention.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has opened a double-digit lead in Florida as the perception grows among Republican primary voters that he is the strongest general election candidate against President Obama. The state's GOP Primary is on Tuesday.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Florida Republican Primary Voters, conducted Saturday, shows Romney up by 16 points with 44% support. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is a distant second at 28%.

Former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum earns 12% support, while Texas Congressman Ron Paul picks up 10%. One percent (1%) prefer some other candidate, and five percent (5%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here).

This Florida survey of 750 Likely Republican Primary Voters was conducted on January 28, 2012 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 4 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.