Romney - McCain Race In Florida May Not Be a Close As We Think

As we saw in New Hampshire with Hillary Clinton's surprise victory over Barack Obama (who was supposed to win by a 10% margin), polls aren't always the most accurate. Admittedly, though, they are fairly "on" most of the time. However, according to the ACT Blog article "A Problem in the RCP Average", Romney may actually have a bigger lead in Florida than the major polls are telling us. I have updated the numbers since the above mentioned article was written. This is the average of all the latest polls (taken from the site realclearpolitics.com), which is far more accurate than any of the polls on their own. On average you can see that Romney and McCain are virtually tied for the lead. I have updated the numbers since the above mentioned article was written.

	Rudy Giuliani	Mike Huckabee	John McCain	Mitt Romney
InsiderAdvantage*	16	15	24	26
SurveyUSA	18	14	30	28
Reuters C-Span/Zogby	15	10	31	28
Rasmussen	20	15	23	27
Mason-Dixon	18	15	26	30
Strategic Vision (R)	22	18	25	20
Herald/SPT/Bay9	15	15	25	23
RCP Average	17.7	14.6	26.3	26

However, polls are sometimes a bit misleading. Remember that many of these polls were not exclusive to Republicans only (so the Dems and Independents have their say in them too). The thing to remember is that Florida is not an open primary, so only Republicans can vote (not Democrats and Independents like in New Hampshire and Michigan). Unfortunately, most of the polls do not include polling results for JUST Republicans. However, a few of them did. The ones highlighted in blue below had separate results for GOP voters only. Observe how the average at the bottom changes in light of the new found results.

	Rudy Giuliani	Mike Huckabee	John McCain	Mitt Romney
InsiderAdvantage*	15.7	14.9	24.7	27.8
SurveyUSA	18	18	24	33
Reuters C-Span/Zogby	15	10	31	28
Rasmussen	20	15	23	27
Mason-Dixon	18	15	26	30
Strategic Vision (R)	22	18	25	20
Herald/SPT/Bay9	15	15	25	23
RCP Average	17.7	15.1	25.5	27.0

Obviously Mitt is winning according to these results, albeit only by a little bit, but keep in mind two things. One, the polls for McCain coming out of South Carolina with victory momentum were much higher, and have been eroding at a rapid pace with more people hopping off the Boldface Lie, uh, I mean supposed "Straight Talk Expess". Two, the results sway in favour of Romney when only two of the seven polls above are modified to include Republicans only. Imagine the difference if all of them were changed (evidently an even greater lead for him).

The funniest part about this little exercise is McCain's boldface lie, oh crap, I mean "straight talk" (I always do that) during the debate on Thursday. He told everyone, in response to a question about whether he was conservative enough to get the Republican support he needed, that Republicans have supported him more than Mitt Romney. BS! Evidently McCain isn't smart enough (or too old to use the internet) to look up the results from New Hampshire (where he won) that show Romney beating him by 5% (if I recall correctly, it could be 7%) among Republicans only, or Michigan where Romney had a significant lead over him (not just with conservatives but overall). Let's not forget Iowa, Wyoming and Nevada. Time after time Romney has beaten McCain if you remove Dems and Independents from the vote. But McCain has the audacity to full-out lie to us by saying that he has won more support from Republicans. Can anyone tell me if McCain is honestly on crack? I think he might need to change dealers. Like how does he get away unscathed by the media for saying the unprecedented amount of garbage that he does. Or how about him saying at the debate, when asked about his earlier comments on how he didn't think he was strong on the economy, something to the effect of "I never said I was weak on the economic issues". COMMON, PLEASE, DO YOU TAKE US FOR IDIOT JOHNNY BOY! This guy has been hanging out with Bill Clinton and Pinocchio a little too much. Just a couple weeks ago he said these comments (click here for a plethora of quotes to show that John was lying to the American public).

Well enough about McCainian ... Florida is looking good for Mitt. He's rising in the polls, he's got a good ground team there, and most of all, he actually has substance, class, and an action plan behind his ideas (unlike other people in the race). On to victory in the Sunshine State.