2012 United States presidential election in Florida
Republican primary
### Republican primary

The Republican primary was held on January 31, 2012\. Fifty delegates were at stake, none of them RNC (or super) delegates; it is unclear whether these delegates will be allocated proportionally or winner\-take\-all. Originally awarded 99 delegates, the [Republican National Committee](/wiki/Republican_National_Committee "Republican National Committee") removed half of Florida's delegates because the state committee moved its Republican primary before March 6; the [Republican National Committee](/wiki/Republican_National_Committee "Republican National Committee") rules also set the delegate allocation to be proportional because the contest was held before April 1\. It is a [closed primary](/wiki/Partisan_primary "Partisan primary"). There were 4,063,853 [registered Republican](/wiki/Republican_Party_%28United_States%29 "Republican Party (United States)") voters as of January 3, 2012\.

Florida is spread over two time zones, so voting wasn't completed until 7 pm CST/8pm EST.

#### Significance

In an effort to increase the political importance of their state's primary and receive added media exposure often directed to the early contests, Florida decided to plan its primary ahead of the early contests, a move that violated Republican Party rules and forced early states to move up their contests. Florida announced that their primary would occur on January 31 instead of the expected March; Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina were expected to have their primaries in February but were forced to push their primaries into January, thereby shortening the overall amount of time that each person could campaign. Florida made this move in 2008\.

As a result of this calendar violation, Florida was stripped of half of its delegates, awarding only 50 delegates instead of the original 100 delegates.

[Dean Cannon](/wiki/Dean_Cannon "Dean Cannon"), the Republican speaker of the Florida House of Representatives: "My goal all along is for Florida to preserve her place as the fifth spot on the nominating calendar and not to move ahead of Iowa and New Hampshire."

#### Controversy

According to a Gingrich campaign memo, he planned to challenge the results based on an interpretation of the Republican National Committee's rules that state that no contest can be winner\-take\-all prior to April 1, 2012\. Gingrich would have requested that delegates be divided proportionally, corresponding to the percentage of votes each candidate received. It is not known what result a successful challenge might have had.


What was the significance of Florida's decision to hold its primary ahead of schedule?