Newt Gingrich comes in a “distant second” to Mitt Romney in the Florida GOP primary. Currently NBC News is projecting Romney with 47% to Gingrich’s 31%. Rachel Maddow on-air said, “there are diseases with better unfavorables than Gingrich.” Rick Santorium took only 13%, and Ron Paul walks away with only 7%.
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Romney picks up 50 delegates in this winner-take-all state.
Santorum has taken offense publicly for Gingrich pressing Santorum to drop out.
Romney beat Gingrich among women by about 22 percentages points.
Also, via Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight blog:
No Edge for Gingrich Along Georgia Border
If there’s one place Newt Gingrich might have been expected to do well tonight, it’s in the counties in the extreme northern part of Florida that border his native state of Florida.
But so far, Mr. Gingrich is only running about even with Mitt Romney in these counties.
Between the eight border counties that have reported results so far, Mr. Gingrich has 15,549 votes – slightly behind Mr. Romney’s 15,726.
Mr. Gingrich may overtake Mr. Romney by the end of the evening since Leon County – which contains Tallahassee and is more moderate than most of the region – has reported a higher share of its results than most others. Still, that Mr. Gingrich is struggling to hold his ground even along the Georgia border is a sign of his deep difficulties tonight.
Developing story – stay tuned for updates.
Image via TPM.