Polls opened in the pivotal Florida primary on Tuesday after days of clashes between leading GOP presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich.
The two front-runners have acknowledged that the campaign -- at least among them -- has turned negative, with Gingrich accusing Romney of being untruthful.
Bolstered by the Latino vote and polls this week that show him with a lead, Romney has appeared confident in recent days while still jabbing angrily at Gingrich's past.
"He has been flailing around a bit trying to go after me for one thing or the other," Romney told supporters recently in a campaign stop outside St. Petersburg. "You just watch it and shake your head. It has been kind of painfully revealing to watch."
Gingrich goes all out
Gingrich told supporters in Orlando that he won't quit regardless of Tuesday's outcome.
"We are going to tell the truth," Gingrich said. "We're going to beat a big lie campaign with a truth campaign. We're going to beat money power with people power. And we are going to go all the way to the convention, and we are going to win in Tampa, and we are going to be the nominee, with your help, of the Republican party."
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"The fact is, once you get beyond Florida, these are all proportional representation states, and he's not going to be anywhere near a majority by April. And so this is going to go on all the way to the convention," the former House speaker told ABC's "This Week" on Sunday.
Ron Paul focuses on future
Ron Paul has actually skipped campaigning in Florida, choosing to spend time in Nevada, Maine and Colorado, the next states on the primary calendar.
"We're going to stay in and see what comes of it. And who knows what will come of the other two candidates," the Texas congressman told CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday. "You know, there's been lots of ups and downs. So maybe there will be some downs and we might be able to pick up the pieces."
Santorum vows to push on
Rick Santorum also conceded Florida due to the state’s winner-take-all format, which severely limit his chances of securing delegates. Santorum canceled his Sunday events in Florida to be in Pennsylvania with his hospitalized daughter, Bella, who suffers from Trisomy 18 -- a rare genetic disorder -- and has been struggling with a life-threatening bout of pneumonia.
Santorum told CNN's John King that “this is a race that will come to us at some point and we’ll be able to take advantage when it does.”
The former Pennsylvania senator chose not to return to Florida, heading to Missouri to get a headstart in the other states with upcoming caucuses and primaries.
"We're just showing this is a national campaign," Santorum said. "We have resources deployed here. We're going to be spending money in all these states, and we're hiring staff and have, in fact, hired staff in some of the other states coming up on Super Tuesday."
What’s at stake in Florida
Florida is the biggest political prize thus far in the primary season, with 50 delegates going to the winner. By comparison, New Hampshire (12), Iowa (28) and South Carolina (25) only have 65 delegates combined.
Florida officials this week have said more than 630,000 people have cast absentee ballots or voted early -- more than all votes cast in South Carolina.
A Florida win would cement Romney as the GOP front-runner and give him much-needed momentum. He finished a close second to Santorum in the Iowa caucuses, then easily won the New Hampshire primary. But Gingrich came on strong in South Carolina with a solid victory.
Florida's 4.2 million Latinos represent 23% of all Floridians. A recent poll released to CNN last week of ""Latino Soccer Mamis" leading up to Tuesday's Republican primary showed that the influential issue was immigration. Latino moms said immigration and the DREAM Act, which supports citizenship for children of illegal immigrants, were important to 32% of them and that they were 71% more likely to back a candidate based on his position on the DREAM Act.
The survey, conducted by Latino Decisions, has a sampling error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.
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