What if those voters who considered themselves “very conservative” who voted for McCain had voted otherwise? How would Florida have come out?
I’ve already noted below that I am perplexed how any person who considers himself “very conservative” could have cast a vote in favor of McCain (I still would love to know from someone who did that what their reasoning was). But, what if…let’s look at the exit polling numbers.
Persons who identified themselves as “very conservative” comprised 27% of the Republican primary voters in Florida. Of those 27%, 21% voted for McCain. This represents 6% of the total votes cast in the Florida Republican Primary. Suppose those voters, instead of voting for McCain had instead voted half for Romney and half for Huckabee. McCain’s overall total would have declined from 36% of the total vote to 30%. Romney’s total votes would have climbed from 31% of the total vote to 34% and Huckabee would have increased from 14% to 17% overtaking Giuliani for third place (for whatever that’s worth in a winner-take-all state like Florida).
The delegate count, which currently stands at 95 for McCain and 67 for Romney, would instead be 40 for McCain and 124 for Romney. For the life of me, I cannot imagine what was going through the heads of the voters who consider themselves “very conservative.”
Let this be a cautionary tale for “very conservative” voters in other, upcoming primaries.