Dissecting Florida

OK, here goes. First of all, 34% of the electorate were late deciders, and McCain edged out Romney with them. The momentum he got from SC was definitely a big factor. This is how you win elections--not by skipping primaries (Romney) or avoiding the early calendar altogether (Giuliani), but by contesting for every vote. I've exculpated Romney from skipping SC, but you could argue that in the short-term it might have hurt him--what if he took votes away from McCain by campaigning harder resulting in a Huckabee win? Then could he have won Florida? Perhaps that's not such a stretch, but in the long term he needs to knock out Huckabee first, and then take on McCain. This must be his long-term strategy. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

So I refuse to abandon my inside-outside paradigm of the Republican race. That is to say, the liberal-moderate vote (38% of Florida's Republican electorate) or the Democrat-Independent vote (20% of Florida's Republican electorate) is not enough to win the nomination, and a candidate like McCain needs to broaden his appeal in order to win in the end. McCain has been doing that, by attacking Romney's flip-flopping on social issues. He's been emphasizing national security, and has done well with people who served in the military (27% of Florida's Republican electorate) which he won heavily in Florida and also won in SC.

So can McCain pull it off? He's just passed two huge tests, SC and FL. In SC he relied on a split Republican field. But Florida included a candidate whose voters track McCain's: Giuliani. Both candidates did better with Hispanics, better with seniors than middle-aged voters, better with secular voters, better with pro-choice voters, and better with liberals and moderates. Giuliani's voters would to a greater degree support McCain rather than other candidates, I'm guessing, even though McCain tied with Romney for Giuliani voters' second-choice.

As a side note, Thompson voters' second choice was heavily for Romney.

Ever since Michigan, McCain's national standing in the polls has dropped, and Romney's have increased. Florida was a closed primary, which McCain had difficulty winning in 2000.

The conclusion is that McCain is the front-runner, having bested the two more conservative candidates in consecutive contests, and eliminated the other two top candidates. But this race is still wide open. If Romney had won, he would be in the drivers' seat, but he didn't.