Will today's Florida primary determine GOP front-runner?
Mitt Romney (left) led Newt Gingrich in Florida polls ahead of Tuesday's GOP presidential primary there.
January 31st, 2012
03:29 PM ET

Will today's Florida primary determine GOP front-runner?

After one month and three contests, it may be up to Florida to finally add some clarity to the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

Polls were open across Florida on Tuesday for voters who were not among the more than 632,000 who had already cast absentee or early ballots as of Monday. The winner walks away with Florida's 50 delegates - the largest haul so far in the primary and caucus calendar.

With three different winners in the three contests so far, Florida could be the state to put one of the four remaining major GOP candidates firmly into the front-runner position.

"I think the winner of Florida is in all likelihood going to be the nominee of our party," Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio told CNN Tuesday. "Florida is a mini America."

In the final Florida poll of likely GOP primary voters, released Tuesday by the American Research Group, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney had a 12-point lead over former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, with former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas far behind. The poll, conducted Sunday and Monday, has a margin of error of four percentage points.

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Filed under: Florida • Politics • Republican Party
soundoff (18 Responses)
  1. citizen

    Anyway,
    Spending $ 16 million on negative adds in Florida and creating 86,000 minimum wage jobs at staples while enriching yourself is not a good enough record.

    January 31, 2012 at 8:06 pm | Report abuse |
  2. citizen

    A guy named Joseph Smith had a vision and some other people signed a paper saying they had the same vision.
    Why isn't a fundamentally alien perspective fair game?

    January 31, 2012 at 8:24 pm | Report abuse |
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