Debate Reaction: Santorum Wins, Romney Set to End Newt Threat

If anyone not on stage won tonight’s CNN Florida GOP Presidential debate, it was Mitt Romney’s new debate coach. And the adrenaline he apparently pumped into the governor before he took the stage.

But in all seriousness, as far as answers to questions and actual issues are concerned, Rick Santorum won the debate. He talked about what kind of appeal he feels he could have in the general election well and he seemed sincere and less out for blood than the other candidates, excluding Ron Paul. Santorum also successfully contrasted himself to both Gingrich and Romney especially on health care and TARP (the latter of which he doesn’t even have a record on, but it worked) as well as Paul on foreign policy.

From the other candidates, it was a different story. During one of the few engagements Romney had with Santorum, he said something along the lines of “you don’t have to get angry about it,” and just came off as a total jerk. The same could be said of the way Newt and Mitt interacted with each other. There was constant bickering, especially early on with regards to Fannie Mae and each man’s history and investments in the government sponsored enterprise. They both seemed to be punching down while being petulant at the same time.

However, Newt Gingrich did not win the debate or hit any home runs – and that’s all Romney needed. Newt’s debate weapon has been neutralized (whether through Romney’s efforts or just luck) and I’d expect the Newtmentum to slowly begin to die.

This then makes a good time to congratulate Gingrich for what he has done this primary season: he successfully brought out the fiery, passionate Romney everyone has been looking for. Newt highlighted many of Romney’s weaknesses and Romney had to defend or deflect them and I think he’s learning how to do so, as this debate can attest.

After tonight, I expect Santorum to see a bump after his good showing, but not much especially considering he’s not spending any money in Florida on media. Newt will fall thanks to that but also because of his sub par performance while Romney gets a bump and sits on an at least somewhat comfortable lead going into election day.

If I had to predict now, I’d say Mitt beats Newt by about 5 to 10 points with Santorum and Paul trailing significantly. Romney then takes all the delegates and moves on energized as the frontrunner again. Eventually, he’ll become the presumptive nominee like everyone expected from the start.

Image by Getty Images via @daylife