TAMPA–White House hopeful Mitt Romney is up in Florida, according to a PPP poll released Saturday.
Highlight findings from PPP: “If you want a clue as to why Romney releasing his tax returns hasn’t hurt him one little bit in Florida consider this: 68% of Republicans in the state have a favorable opinion of rich people to only 8% with a negative one. Romney’s up 47-32 among those who like rich people. Here’s a simple reality: in a GOP primary it’s an asset to be rich and successful, not a liability. Attacks on Romney along those lines just aren’t going to be effective with Republican voters. Additionally only 14% of voters have ‘major concerns’ about Romney’s overseas bank accounts, while 56% have none at all.
-56% of likely voters said they watched Thursday night’s debate, and they support Romney 41-35. This is a major departure from what we’ve found in past polling among debate watchers, who tended to favor Gingrich by large margins. These numbers confirm the conventional wisdom that Thursday night was a rough one for Newt.
-Voters in South Carolina who were most concerned about electability voted for Newt, and our first post-South Carolina Florida poll showed equal numbers of voters seeing Gingrich and Romney as the candidate with the best chance of defeating Barack Obama. Those numbers have shifted in a major way over the last five days with 50% now seeing Romney as most electable to only 23% for Gingrich.
PDF of the entire poll:
