Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is surging in popularity among Florida voters, according to an American Research Group poll released Monday.
The former Massachusetts governor finished the poll garnering 42 percent of the votes, a total of 17 percentage points ahead of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
That’s quite a change from a month ago, when an early December Quinnipiac University poll showed Mr. Gingrich holding a 13 percentage point lead over Mr. Romney among Florida voters. That was around the time when the former Georgia lawmaker first experienced a surge in polls of early primary voting states. Since then his campaign has tanked, largely because of the barrage of negative ads ran against him in Iowa by Mr. Romney according to Mr. Gingrich himself.
Since then, Mr. Gingrich finished in fourth place in both Iowa and New Hampshire, and is hoping for a better result in South Carolina.
However, the ARG poll released Monday shows that even if he does win South Carolina he will likely face an uphill battle in Florida the following week.
The former House speaker recently predicted that if he wins South Carolina, then he can win the Republican nomination in 2012.
“If I win South Carolina, I think I will become the Republican nominee,” said Mr. Gingrich during a campaign stop in South Carolina on Thursday.
The new ARG poll though shows that voters in Florida have not been swayed towards Mr. Gingrich after the aggressive criticism of Mr. Romney and Bain Capital that he unleashed last week in South Carolina.
Mr. Gingrich finished the poll with 25 percent, although the good news for him is that the poll indicates the Sunshine state is shaping up to be a two man race between him and Mr. Romney. None of the other Republican candidates finished in double figures.
Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum finished the poll in third place, well out of contention with Mr. Romney and Mr. Gingrich at just 9 percent of the votes. Texas congressman Ron Paul finished with 8 percent. Mr. Paul will be included on the Florida Republican primary ballot on January 31st, but has hinted that he will skip campaigning in Florida to focus on the February 4th Nevada caucuses.
The ARG poll of Florida voters was conducted prior to former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman dropping out of the race. He finished with just 5 percent of the votes, it will be interesting to see if his endorsement of Mr. Romney gives the former Massachusetts governor even more of a boost as more polls of Florida voters are completed in the next two weeks.
The poll was conducted between January 13th and January 15th among 600 likely Florida Republican primary voters with a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
