Proving that it is less a Southern state and more of a Yankee suburb, Florida awarded former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney with a 14-point victory over Newt Gingrich.
Flipping the tables on Gingrich, who carried South Carolina by 12 points just 10 days earlier, Romney piled up huge majorities in Florida's most populous counties.
In Miami-Dade, Romney beat Gingrich 69,653 to 30,394. In Hillsborough, Romney won 43,129 to 25,520 and he carried Broward 35,795 to 22,012.
Overall, Romney's margin of victory in Florida nearly matched his performance in New Hampshire, where he beat Ron Paul by 16 points.
Coming off his win in the Granite State, Romney had a chance to duplicate his achievement in South Carolina. He entered the Palmetto State with a 15-point lead in the polls, but that evaporated in the heat of a fiery CNN debate performance by Gingrich in Charleston.
Taking on the mainstream media and Washington elites, the Georgian's anger resonated with South Carolinians -- and not just Republicans.
With the South Carolina primary open to independent voters and Democrats, Gingrich swept 43 of 46 counties and won every demographic category.
Gingrich's strong showing among non-Republicans punctured the conventional wisdom that Romney fares better with that cohort.
"It was not an ideological thing, it was an attitude thing. There's a lot of anger at the federal government here, and a p----d off Newt tapped into that," explained Wesley Donehue, a GOP strategist based in Columbia.
Donehue noted that South Carolinians are enraged over the federal National Labor Relations Board case against Boeing Co. and the Department of Justice's opposition to South Carolina's tough immigration and voter ID laws.
Floridians -- afflicted with even worse unemployment rates than South Carolina -- are anxious, if not angry, too. And it was Romney's turn during another CNN debate, last Thursday in Jacksonville, to turn up the heat.
Pounding away at Gingrich, the normally subdued Romney showed more fight, and carried the debate.
Romney's aggressive streak was also displayed on the airwaves across Florida's 10 media markets, with negative ads hitting Gingrich's Freddie Mac connections and ouster as House speaker.
Acknowledging that he lost his edge in Florida, Gingrich's "concession" speech in Orlando on Tuesday night was anything but conciliatory.
Instead, he pulled out the populist card he had played so effectively in South Carolina. Putting aside his musings about lunar colonies, Gingrich talked passionately about being the "people's candidate."
"People power beats money power," he declared, as he bashed campaigns (read: Romney's and Obama's) that are funded by "Wall Street."
Donehue, who served as Michele Bachmann's campaign adviser in South Carolina, said Romney does not naturally connect with poor and working-class voters.
That appears especially true in the South, where populism and a strong strain of distrust of the federal government has been cultivated since before the Civil War.
Florida, with its heavy influx of Northern residents and retirees dependent on Social Security and Medicare, is generally less anti-Washington than its neighbors across Dixie. Romney carried every voter group in the Sunshine State's closed primary except those describing themselves as "very conservative."
A CNN projection of future primary contests forecasts that Gingrich would sweep the Southern states and, due to proportional allocation of delegates elsewhere, could block Romney from amassing the required 1,144 votes for the nomination.
Gingrich's strength among rural voters was evident even in Florida, where he won dozens of small counties in the Panhandle and central regions of the peninsula. These counties most closely resemble the demographics of Deep South and border states that will be prominent on Super Tuesday (March 6).
Whether Gingrich's populist message can move him beyond that of a regional candidate remains to be seen. With his resume as a D.C. insider, his message remains inherently conflicted.
But many in the tea party movement and allied patriot groups remain eager to aid any candidate who is not Mitt Romney. And, for now, Gingrich has the inside track.
"It's a two-person race. Rick Santorum and Ron Paul should drop out if we are to have any hope of defeating the moderate GOP establishment's choice," said Jesse Phillips, a member of Florida's Tea Party Network.
Phillips, 28, is indicative of the challenge Romney faces among young voters who are uninspired by a well-heeled businessman who has taken to singing "America the Beautiful" on the campaign trail.
"Mitt Romney drew more young voters in Florida this year than in 2008, but the low turnout still raises questions about his appeal to youth," said Peter Levine, director of Tufts University's Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement.
Randy Nielsen, a Florida-based GOP strategist, says the Sunshine State is a much better proving ground for Republican candidates than South Carolina, which he called an "outlier."
Pointing to Romney's big wins Tuesday in the suburban counties of Collier, Martin and Palm Beach, Nielsen maintains those are the types of areas that carry Republicans to victory in general elections.
"Counties like Clay and the Panhandle would never vote for Obama. Rural voters are not the problem for Republicans," Nielsen said.
Women are also crucial, Nielsen said, and Romney carried their vote by a wide margin over Gingrich. "There is a huge gender gap, and it's a problem for Gingrich."
"If you can win Republican suburban women, you win elections in Florida," Nielsen concluded.
While asserting that he is "not necessarily a Romney fan," Nielsen predicted that the nomination of Gingrich would be "a glorious disaster on steroids. Gingrich will be a nightmare."
--
Contact Kenric Ward at kward@sunshinestatenews.com or (772) 801-5341.
