Key factors to watch as Florida decides in GOP race

Florida finally gets its turn.

By the end of Tuesday, the state’s Republican voters will have played a major role in determining if Mitt Romney is going to cruise to the GOP nomination or if Newt Gingrich is going to build off his stunning victory in South Carolina.

If either Ron Paul or Rick Santorum gets an unexpected bump in the state, it also could just cement their determination to stick out the race until the Republican National Convention opens in downtown Tampa this summer.

The big-game feel to the primary is exactly what state lawmakers hoped for when they moved the primary to Jan. 31. For years, Florida Republicans typically voted after GOP nominees had been decided. But for the second time in four years, the state is in a prime position to be influential, if not pivotal, in determining who will challenge President Barack Obama for re-election in November.

A Romney win could give him knockout-like momentum going into February, when seven mostly northern and western states where he’s expected to do well vote. The next southern state votes won’t come until Super Tuesday on March 6, when Tennessee and Georgia go to the polls.

For Gingrich, a victory on the heels of South Carolina would provide a boost because he is leading many national polls over Romney.

With a state as big and diverse as Florida, many factors will decide today’s election. But five stand out as keys to watch tonight:

Female voters

One key to Gingrich’s South Carolina victory was his ability to win over female voters despite personal baggage related to his three marriages. He won 36 percent of the vote among women in South Carolina to secure his overall 12 percentage-point win over Romney, who carried just 30 percent of female voters.

But will that repeat in Florida? Polling in the Sunshine State has shown repeatedly that Romney does much better among women. In a Quinnipiac University poll released late last week, nearly two-thirds of Republican female voters reported having a favorable impression of Romney. Gingrich’s favorable rating among women in Florida was 49 percent.

Hispanic voters

Four years ago, John McCain won the state’s Cuban-American community, key to winning Miami-Dade, the state’s largest county.

But this time, Florida’s Cuban-American community has been up for grabs. Both Gingrich and Romney have talked tough about Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, but both have had key missteps too.

Romney is still living down a 2008 speech in which he ended with a phrase Castro uses to close his speeches. Last week, Gingrich received a sharp rebuke from U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio for using Spanish-language ads in Miami that called Romney anti-immigrant.

Hispanic votes make up 11 percent of the state’s Republican voters. In places like Miami-Dade, the state’s largest county by population, nearly 72 percent of Republican voters are Hispanic.

Northeast Florida

Something has to give in the Jacksonville region.

Four years ago, that northeast Florida corner was a rare bright spot for Romney. Though he lost Florida, winning 31 percent of the vote, he carried all three of the major counties that make up the Jacksonville metro area — Duval, Clay and St. Johns — winning more than 40 percent of the vote in each.

But Gingrich, a former Georgia Congressman, has a built-in advantage as a Southerner in a region that seems more akin to Georgia politics than South Florida sometimes. If Gingrich wins these voters like he did in South Carolina, he could dominate this region.

Southwest Florida

Angry economic voters abound here.

Unemployment numbers and foreclosure rates in this region have been among the highest in the state since 2008. That has fueled the region’s incredible voter turnout.

In the 2010 GOP primary for governor, Republican turnout was 10 percentage points higher in Collier, Lee and Charlotte counties than the state average. The region also is an area that Gov. Rick Scott, who pitched himself as the jobs candidate, won handily.

Which GOP candidate hit the economic message the best will likely show in the results that are reported from this area.

Santorum’s pull

While Gingrich and Romney were beating a path along the state’s Interstate 4 corridor to population centers, Santorum was following a different strategy.

Santorum ventured out to more rural areas like Okeechobee and Lady Lake, hoping to win over disaffected rural, evangelical voters.

If Santorum finds any success, it will be in those rural areas. Not only could they boost his final total, but it could also pull enough votes away from Gingrich to help Romney carry the state.