Romney to win in Florida, but by how much?

When this week began, Newt Gingrich was the clear favourite to win tonight’s Florida primary. He’d just beaten Mitt Romney by 13 points in South Carolina and two new polls put him 8 to 9 points ahead in Florida. Momentum was on his side, Romney was facing criticism over his tax returns, and he’d have two debates – his favourite campaigning medium – to press his advantage home. But – despite securing an endorsement from Herman Cain on Saturday – Gingrich now finds himself well behind Romney, and with just a 3 per cent chance of victory, according to Nate Silver’s model (above).

Why the turnaround? Partly it’s down to advertising. Romney and the ‘Restoring Our Future’ Super PAC that supports him have spent over $15 million on ads, compared to Gingrich and ‘Winning Our Future’ who’ve ‘only’ spent around $4 million. And, according to the Campaign Media Analysis Group, 92 per cent of the ads run in Florida over the past week have been negative. It looks like Romney’s ads reminding Floridians of the former Speaker’s ‘ethics violations’ in the ‘90s and his ties to mortgage company Freddie Mac have taken their toll.

In addition, Gingrich failed to get the sort of ‘debate bump’ that propelled him into the lead in South Carolina. Instead, he put in an unremarkable performance last Monday, followed by a poor, defensive one on Thursday. Romney, by contrast, was more assured, and more aggressive, than he has tended to be in the debate setting, and it seems to have helped him.

So, a Romney victory tonight now looks almost certain; the polls agree on that. The only real question is how much he’ll win by. Here, the polls disagree: a Suffolk University poll shows a 20 point lead for Romney, while the latest from PPP pegs it at just 7 points. Gingrich may have vowed to take the fight ‘all the way to the convention’, but he’s going to have to hope the results are closer to that PPP poll than the Suffolk one if he’s to remain the last credible challenger to Romney after tonight.