Originally published January 30, 2012 at 10:05 PM | Page modified January 31, 2012 at 10:19 AM
No matter who wins Florida, extended Republican race likely
Even Romney and his supporters are starting to acknowledge the race will not end in Florida.
The Washington Post
Florida GOP primary
Key fact: People older than 65 are expected to cast about one-third of votes, and polls show they're breaking strongly for Mitt Romney.Stakes: Winner receives all 50 delegates, half of normal because the state party violated national rules by scheduling the primary before Feb. 1.
Polling hours: 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. (Because Florida has two time zones, the last polling stations close at 8 p.m. EST.)
Who can vote: Only registered Republicans (Florida has closed primaries)
Expected turnout: More than 2 million, according to GOP officials; more than 605,000 had voted as of Monday.
Seattle Times news services
On the campaign trail
Romney adds delegates: Mitt Romney has picked up two delegates from the Jan. 21 South Carolina primary, while winner Newt Gingrich earned 23 of the state's 25. Gingrich received 11 delegates for the statewide victory and two each in the six congressional districts where he won. Romney won the other district by about 1,400 votes.He's confident, too: Romney said Monday the Florida primary is breaking his way and urged voters to send Gingrich "to the moon," poking fun at the former House speaker's professed pledge to build a moon colony as president. Romney was planning to stop in Minnesota on his way to Nevada on Wednesday.
Latest poll: A new Quinnipiac University poll released Monday shows Romney with a 14-point lead over Gingrich, 43 percent to 29 percent, among likely Florida voters in Tuesday's primary. Texas Rep. Ron Paul and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum each had 11 percent, according to the poll.
Santorum in Missouri: After spending what he described as a stressful weekend with his sick 3-year-old daughter, Santorum resumed his campaign at a suburban St. Louis community college — assuring people that his daughter was improving and forecasting a political revival in swing states such as Missouri in advance of its Feb. 7 primary. He also had a campaign event in Minnesota, which is holding its caucuses next week.
Gingrich sued: Frank Sullivan, composer of the hit song "Eye of the Tiger," has sued Gingrich in an effort to stop the Republican presidential candidate from using the "Rocky III" anthem at campaign events.
Seattle Times news services
Interactive: GOP hopefuls battle for Florida vote
No, it's not just you: Presidential nominating contests are getting longer.
Four years after a Democratic primary battle that lasted until June, the Republican presidential race looks as though it will grind on for weeks or months, despite Mitt Romney's clear lead and likely victory in Florida's primary Tuesday.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Sunday that he intends to stay in the race through the party's national convention in late August. And the campaign of Texas Rep. Ron Paul has said it aims to press on long enough to amass a stable of delegates to require some negotiation during the convention.
Both candidates hope, if they cannot win the race, to prevent Romney from winning a majority of delegates — a result that could force the convention to pick a nominee.
The idea of a brokered convention remains a remote possibility, and whether Gingrich and Paul can make good on their aims to stop Romney remains an open question. Still, the days of quickly decided presidential nominations seem to be over.
"In this year, with these candidates, the nomination contest will not be quick and tidy," said Tennessee Republican National Committeeman John Ryder. "It is unlikely that any candidate will be forced out until April. I think we will have a contest for another two months."
Romney's campaign had hoped for a knockout blow with victories in South Carolina on Jan. 21 and Florida on Tuesday, but he fell short in the first contest.
Even Romney and his supporters are starting to acknowledge the race will not end in Florida.
"We're now three contests into a long primary season," the former Massachusetts governor said after his second-place finish in South Carolina.
The reason for the longer campaign appears to be threefold:
• First, conservative resistance to Romney's status as the presumptive nominee remains.
• Second, the proliferation of political media outlets and the uptick in debates make it easier for a candidate to get his or her message out without much money.
• Third, super PACs, which have no contribution limits, can prop up a candidate whose campaign is otherwise struggling to raise money.
Gingrich has used all three to work his way back into the race and conceivably could keep his campaign afloat by continuing to exploit them — particularly the conservative hesitation toward Romney.
"These races, I believe, are the result of a very polarized electorate both in general but also within the parties," said David Norcross, a longtime Republican National Committee (RNC) member who supported Romney in 2008 but has remained neutral this year.
Norcross likened the race between Romney and Gingrich to the 2008 Democratic primaries in which an establishment candidate — Hillary Rodham Clinton — faced resistance from some in the party who were set on finding an alternative, which turned out to be President Obama.
The prospect of that scenario repeating itself may seem remote, but Gingrich's campaign has said it will give it a try regardless of the result Tuesday.
"Either way, there is a long way to go before either candidate clinches the nomination, and this campaign will continue for months," Martin Baker, Gingrich's national political director, said in a memo.
In many ways, the rules are on Gingrich's side.
In the run-up to the 2012 election, the RNC changed its delegate rules so no state that holds its contest before April would be allowed to award all its delegates to the winner; instead, delegates were to be allocated on a more proportional basis, making it much more difficult for a front-runner to rack up a huge early advantage.
While Florida defied those rules, with the blessing of new RNC chairman Reince Priebus, other states are honoring them. As a result, as Baker noted, the winner of Florida's primary will have fewer than 10 percent of the 1,144 delegates needed to win the nomination.
In fact, most delegates won't be handed out until well after the March 6 Super Tuesday voting, which means Romney or any other candidate cannot lock up the nomination for at least two more months. Even then, with the new proportionality rules, it could take significantly longer.
Fewer than one-quarter of delegates will be handed out on a winner-take-all basis; the rest are awarded proportionally (by statewide vote or by district) or via either unpledged delegates or another formula.
Despite all this, Romney still may be able to wrap up the nomination earlier rather than later.
His opponents could run out of money. Or it could become so clear that he will win a majority of delegates that his opponents retreat. In the 2000 and 2004 races, neither a Republican nor a Democratic contest lasted more than 50 days from the first vote until the last major candidate dropped out.
But there is precedent for candidates remaining in the race despite the long odds.
In 1996, commentator Pat Buchanan won a few early states before then-Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., swept all nine contests on Super Tuesday. But Buchanan stayed in the race anyway. By the end, Dole had won 39 of the final 40 contests, but Buchanan had double-digit vote percentages in almost all 39.
Seattle Times staff contributed to this report.
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