With Mitt Romney enjoying a huge win in Florida last night it’s time to look at the exit polls. The very first question is the one that pops out to me:
Mitt Romney has almost double the support from women as does Newt Gingrich. That’s a rather large split and one that really spells problems for the Gingrich brand.
It can be safely assumed that Gingrich’s past marriages and the nasty way in which they ended plays a big part in this outcome. That’s what really hurts Newt’s overall electability problem. If he somehow does get the nomination, Newt risks alienating an important part of the electorate because of his past indiscretions. In an election that is going to go down to the wire, that is a breaking point for the GOP.
Next we have another issue that the media doesn’t seem to be paying attention too – the Tea Party influence.
62% of Romney voters somewhat oppose the Tea Party as compared to 17% of Newt’s. This is one that really, really jumps out at me.
The Tea Party has made it clear they want to see Gingrich win the nomination, yet Romney won huge yesterday. It really shows that the influence of the Tea Party is in serious decline. This is also a trend we have been seeing more and more.
Given the Tea Party’s influence in the 2010 election and their lack of influence in the primaries this year, it appears that America’s nightmare may be coming to an end. Ironically the media, who helped push the Tea Party into our everyday lives, has been mostly silent on this. In the first presidential election since the movement started, we are seeing their influence almost non-existent. My guess is that if Barack Obama wins in November we might see a small rise by the Tea Party, but that will end up being short lived and the GOP will quickly start working on a strong candidate for 2016.
The biggest outcome of yesterday though was Mitt’s win. Given the upcoming primaries and caucuses, I think it’s safe to say Gingrich has going to have a very bad February. At this point it’s pretty safe to say that Mitt Romney will become the nominee and that this primary season is essentially over.
Even with that, we still got February to get through and Gingrich is getting nastier by the day. He might end up being Obama’s best surrogate this election cycle and that’s really going to hurt his standing with the GOP in the future.