Florida voted in its key Republican presidential nominating contest Tuesday, with top contenders John McCain and Mitt Romney tightly matched and ex-New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani's campaign hanging in the balance.
Polls opened at 7:00 am (1200 GMT) in the primary election, in which Florida will provide 57 delegates -- the highest number to date -- to the September convention that will pick the party's presidential candidate.
It will also give the winner strong momentum ahead of next week's "Super Tuesday" when voting will be held in 22 states.
With Giuliani and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee sidelined in opinion polls, McCain and Romney hit out at each other ahead of the primary on the economy and the Iraq war, two major issues for voters.
Senator Hillary Clinton was the clear favorite here ahead of a Democratic primary that could give her a symbolic boost -- but little else, since the national party stripped Florida of delegates after the state broke the rules by changing the date of its vote.
But she suffered a stinging blow on Monday as her rival Barack Obama won the endorsement of influential Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy, the last surviving brother of assassinated president John F. Kennedy.
Under an agreement with their party, the Democratic candidates stayed away from Florida, but the Republican contenders were out in force.
A Zogby poll on Monday put McCain's support at 33 percent and Romney's at 30 percent. Giuliani, who largely ignored voting in other states to stake his campaign on Florida, had 13 percent, two points ahead of Huckabee.
Romney, a venture capitalist with a reputation for turning around ailing companies, touted his economic credentials and pointed to what he called McCain's "lack of understanding of our economy."
"I frankly can't imagine how you can have a president of the United States who doesn't understand the economy," Romney told reporters.
McCain's camp shot back, accusing the former governor of flip-flopping on just about every major issue.
He also reiterated the claim his rival had sought a timetable for a withdrawal from Iraq, something Romney denies.
"If we had done what Governor Romney suggested, Al-Qaeda would be celebrating a great victory today," McCain, who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam, told the Fox News network.
He said he was confident of support from conservative Republicans due to his tough stance on fighting extremists, despite Romney branding him as too liberal on social issues such as immigration.
"I'm confident that we are going to do well tomorrow," he said told CNN news Monday. "Although I think it will be close."
McCain got a big lift over the past days with endorsements from Florida's highly popular Governor Charlie Crist and Senator Mel Martinez, who has strong clout among the large Cuban-American community.
Around a million Florida voters had already cast early and absentee ballots.
On the Democratic side, a Florida victory would give Clinton a badly needed boost after Obama, a senator from Illinois, trounced her in South Carolina on Saturday.
The former first lady insisted on Sunday the Democratic vote will not be ignored -- even though the national party said it won't count in Florida.
The New York senator has said she wanted the delegations from Florida and Michigan -- which was punished in a similar way -- to be seated at the convention that will nominate the Democratic candidate.
The southeastern state was the decider in the 2000 election, in which George W. Bush was handed victory after five weeks of chaos, recounts and legal battles.
The move clashed with national party rules in both camps. The Republicans also punished Florida, stripping the state of half its 114 delegates to the national convention.
Key Republican presidential contest opens in Florida
Giuliani in trouble as Florida Republicans vote: poll
Republican Rudy Giuliani's White House quest could be in deep trouble as he lags far behind the leaders in a Florida presidential primary he counted on winning, according to a Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll released on Tuesday.
Hours before the start of Florida's voting, Arizona Sen. John McCain held a slim 4-point lead over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, 35 percent to 31 percent, in what was essentially a two-man race, the poll found.
Giuliani, the former New York mayor, was battling former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee for a distant third place finish in Florida. Both registered 13 percent.
The margin of error in the poll was 3.3 percentage points.
Giuliani had staked his campaign on a strong Florida showing after pulling out of other early voting states, but he has drifted down in national and state polls for weeks as the drama of an intensely contested Republican race passed him by.
"The race has become a two-man race, and Giuliani is just not a factor," said pollster John Zogby.
McCain and Romney have dominated the headlines in Florida with a heated battle over who is best prepared to rescue a struggling economy and lead a nation at war, shoving Giuliani and Huckabee aside.
No Republican has been able to grab the front-runner's role in a seesawing Republican race to represent the party in November's presidential election.
McCain and Romney have split the last four nominating contests, as McCain won in South Carolina and New Hampshire and Romney won in Michigan and Nevada. Huckabee earlier won the kick-off contest in Iowa.
A JOLT OF MOMENTUM
The winner in Florida will gain valuable momentum heading into the February 5 "Super Tuesday" voting, when 21 states will have Republican nominating contests in a sprawling coast-to-coast battle.
McCain has made gains since his endorsement on Saturday by Florida Gov. Charlie Crist. They have largely come among the core conservative Republican voters who make up about half the sample and half the Florida primary electorate.
Among self-described conservatives, McCain has now opened a 7-point lead to go with the sizable lead he already held among moderates. Romney still leads overwhelmingly among likely voters who describe themselves as very conservative.
"It does appear the Crist endorsement helped McCain considerably among conservatives," Zogby said.
The decline by Giuliani, who led national polls for much of the year until he started a late slide, could be tracked in the survey.
About 64 percent of his supporters said they decided more than a month ago, while 20 percent decided about a month ago, 10 percent decided a week ago and just 6 percent decided in the last few days.
About 5 percent of Florida voters are still undecided about their choice.
Democrats also will hold a Florida primary, but a dispute with the national party over the contest's date cost the state its delegates to the national convention and led presidential contenders to pledge they would not campaign there.
Hillary Clinton, a New York senator who was crushed in South Carolina on Saturday by Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, said she would go to Florida to greet supporters after voting ends -- technically honoring the pledge.
The rolling poll of 941 likely Republican voters was taken on Sunday and Monday. In a rolling poll, the most recent day's results are added while the oldest day's results are dropped in order to track changing momentum.
Hillary Wins Uncontested Michigan Primary
No surprise here; Sen Clinton was the only top-tier Democrat on the ballot in Michigan today, and should end up with about 60% of the vote. “Uncommitted” is currently sitting at about 35% — driven up, says the Clinton campaign, due to a radio campaign by Obama backers to get supporters to go to the polls, even though he’s not officially running there.
Why go to any effort to get more “uncommitted” votes? With Clinton nearly guaranteed to win the state, the best her opponents could hope for was an embarrassingly small margin of victory that the press might see as a defeat. Either way, the Obama campaign says MI doesn’t matter – and accused her of ignoring the spirit, if not the letter, of a campaign pledge not to compete in states like Michigan and Florida that moved their primaries into January.
The Clinton campaign shot back that Obama shouldn’t be belittling the voices of voters in Michigan and Florida. Check out the full Clinton campaign response after the jump
To: Interested Parties
FR: The Clinton Campaign
RE: Michigan and Florida Presidential Primaries
The Obama campaign today circulated a memo regarding today’s Michigan primary and the January 29 Florida primary. This memo was concerning on several levels.
Let us be very clear. Senator Clinton signed a pledge that she would not campaign in any state that violates the DNC approved calendar. Therefore, we did not campaign in Michigan, nor will we campaign in Florida in violation of the pledge. We have two small scheduled fundraisers in South Florida on January 27, as explicitly permitted by the pledge, but we will not hold any open public campaign events. The Obama campaign has also held numerous fundraisers in Florida since signing the pledge. Contrary to the Obama campaign’s memo, there are no events at large venues, nor have we organized in the state. We intend to do so as our party’s nominee in the general election, but will honor our pledge not to campaign there in violation of the pledge.
Let us be clear about something else, however. While Senator Clinton will honor her commitment not to campaign in Florida in violation of the pledge, she also intends to honor her pledge to hear the voices of all Americans. The people of Michigan and Florida have just as much of a right to have their voices heard as anyone else. It is disappointing to hear a major Democratic presidential candidate tell the voters of ANY state that their voices aren’t important.
Make no mistake — the Obama campaign had no problems when its supporters and allies in Michigan ran radio ads and other campaign activities urging people to vote for “uncommitted” as a way to register their support for Senator Obama — and to give him a chance to compete for those delegates at the national convention (http://facts.hillaryhub.com/archive/?id=5218). Now, with polls in recent days showing that effort and their candidate running far behind in both states, the Obama campaign has shifted tactics to say that those who cast a vote in either state don’t matter. We couldn’t disagree more.
Senator Clinton intends to be President for all fifty states. And while she will honor the pledge she signed and not campaign in either state, she intends to continue to give every American a voice during this election and when she gets to the White House.
