According to the latest Insider Advantage poll released Sunday night, the Florida Republican primary election could be closer than expected as the poll shows Republican candidates Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney separated by just 5 percentage points.
Mr. Romney finished the poll garnering 36 percent of the votes, trailed by Mr. Gingrich who finished with 31 percent. The Insider Advantage poll is the only poll released over the weekend that shows Mr. Gingrich trailing Mr. Romney this closely.
The Rasmussen Reports poll of likely Florida Republican primary voters released Sunday shows the former Massachusetts governor holding a double digit lead over Mr. Gingrich.
Additionally the latest Reuters/Ipsos and NBC/Marist polls both show Mr. Romney leading the former House speaker by double digit percentage points.
Mr. Gingrich’s campaign team posted the Newsmax article to his website under the heading, “New Florida poll: Gingrich surging, ‘race tighter than expected.’”
Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum finished the poll tied with Texas congressman Ron Paul at 12 percentage points each. Although both Mr. Santorum and Mr. Paul participated in the two nationally televised debates in Florida, both candidates have been absent from the campaign trail in the Sunshine state. Mr. Paul is choosing to focus on upcoming states with caucuses, such as Nevada which holds its caucus voting on Saturday.
In contrast, Mr. Santorum has been campaigning in Florida, but has run no ads in the state and is currently in a Pennsylvania with his daughter Bella who is suffering from pneumonia. The former senator also left the state earlier in the week to take care of his tax returns.
The Insider Advantage poll also finished with a total of 9 percent of the voters claiming they were undecided with two days left until the Florida Republican primary election.
“The race will be tighter than expected,” said Matt Towery, a pollster for Insider Advantage. “The trend is favoring Gingrich. Men are moving in droves to Gingrich and away from Romney.”
Although Mr. Gingrich does better with male voters, he continues to suffer from a lack of support from female voters, as he did in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Romney continued to attack each other in television appearances and campaign speeches Monday. The former House speaker called Mr. Romney a “liberal,” in an appearance on CBS News Monday morning.
During an appearance in Dunedin, Florida Monday, the Bain Capital co-founder responded to the “liberal” comment from Mr. Gingrich. He called the former House speaker “sad” and said that his comments were “painfully revealing.”
The Insider Advantage poll was conducted on January 29th among 646 likely Florida Republican primary voters with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.
Despite Mr. Romney being the favorite to win the election on Tuesday, Mr. Gingrich plans on staying in the race well beyond Florida.
Reuters reports that Mr. Gingrich’s national political director sent a memo to reporters Monday stating “This race is just getting started.”
