Florida Primary

        
           So, here we are again. After Tuesday's Republican primary in Florida, Mitt Romney was reestablished as the frontrunner to gain the presidential nomination. With Gingrich's surprising victory in South Carolina earlier in January, many people thought he could become the new frontrunner should he keep up the momentum. However, Romney demonstrated yet again exactly why he has been the consistent favorite for the nomination with a convincing 46% of the votes to Gingrich's 32%. Santorum came in third with just over 13% of the vote after leaving the campaign early to go home to be with his sick daughter, and Ron Paul came in fourth with a barely mentionable percentage of the vote.

huffingtonpost.com

          The way the electoral system works, each state is given a certain number of delegates. Most states have a winner take all system, meaning that when a candidate wins a state, they win the all of delegates that come with that state. Some states though, have a proportional system, where the delegates are divided amongst the candidates according to who came in first, second, third, etc. The number of candidates assigned to each state depends on the population of the state. So, for example, Florida, which has a much larger population, has 50 delegates, while the less populated New Hampshire only has 12 delegates. In order to secure the Republican nomination a candidate needs to secure at least 1,144 delegates. As it stands now, Romney has 65 delegates, Gingrich has 23, Santorum has 6, and Paul has 3. If anyone is going to seriously contend with Romney for any significant period of time, then they have to start winning some states with more delegates in order to have a fighting chance. The next primary is in Nevada, which uses a proportional system, on February 4th followed by Minnesota and Colorado on the 7th. In order for any candidate to get any kind of real traction and disrupt Romney's momentum they need to pick up some delegates from these states.