florida exit polls

florida primary, florida exit poll, florida primary exit polls, florida exit polls 2008, real clear

With more than a million votes already cast during early voting or with absentee ballots, Florida should see turnout records fall today. Local election officials are fretting over possible glitches, not only from electronic voting machines but also from the increased possibility of errors arising from collating totals from all three voting methods.

As to the race itself, Florida this year is reminiscent of South Carolina in 2000 in the sense that it's a hotly contested race that has gotten very personal. There haven't been the same kind of ugly whispering campaigns, to be sure, but the back and forth over the last few days has been remarkably heated, with McCain and Romney trading accusations that the other is a liar, a liberal, a loose cannon, or a flip flopper.

Despite the acrimony, neither McCain nor Romney appears to have suffered in the polls as a result of the negative tone of the campaign over the last few days. It remains a photo finish between the two, with McCain holding a ridiculously slight edge in the final round of polls.

Barring some election day miracle, the big loser is obviously Rudy Giuliani, who appears to be headed for a distant third place finish. Giuliani hinted yesterday that he would make a decision about the future of his campaign on Wednesday, leading some to interpret that as a sign that he would exit the race.

The Giuliani camp denied those reports, but from what I saw yesterday there was a sense of resignation among the Giuliani folks that they'd done as much as they could do but that it looked like it just wasn't meant to be. Still, given that the polls have been badly off a couple of times this year (mostly on the Democratic side, I would add) the Giuliani camp is holding onto a sliver of hope about today's outcome.

We entered Florida nine days ago with a field of six GOP candidates, which quickly became five when Fred Thompson dropped out last Tuesday. Odds are we'll leave Florida tomorrow and go hurtling toward February 5th with a field of four, two of whom have no chance of winning the nomination (Huckabee and Paul).