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Via Ed Morrissey, this news: after Perry’s much-maligned performance in Monday night’s debate, he has taken the lead over Romney in Florida in a new poll. Perry took 29% over Romney’s 20%. The poll was conducted on Tuesday, after the debate, among likely primary voters.
This is especially interesting:
Perry wins two-thirds of the 18-29YO vote, with Ron Paul coming in second at 12.9% and Gingrich third at 9.9%. Romney and Bachmann, along with all of the other candidates, don’t get a single vote in this category. Perry leads in all age demographics except the 65+, perhaps a result of the Social Security debate — but he still comes in second with 22.6% of the vote to Romney’s 30.9%. Among white voters, Perry leads 26/21, but he takes nearly half of the Hispanic vote with 48%. Bachmann comes in second in this demo with 23.9%, followed by Romney at 12.7%. Perry leads among men and women, but does much better with men (35/19), barely edging Romney with the latter (22/20). Bachmann, surprisingly, finishes behind Gingrich with both genders as she does overall.
There are likely multiple factors driving the 18-29 year old demographic, but one likely explanation is that Perry’s tough talk on how Social Security is a rip-off for them has gotten through. That he does more poorly among seniors after his tough talk is unsurprising, and even though Romney once called Social Security “a tremendous fraud,” he has pandered back to the middle on the issue by insisting that Perry is trying to “scare seniors.”
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