democrat s 800,000. in what could prove to be an even bigger story here, the independent voters, their registration numbers are way, way up at nearly half a million, 486,000. chris stirewalt is our fox news digital editor and host of fox news live. we are talking about critical swing states that helped barack obama into the presidency of three and a half years ago, and now the democrats seem to be leaving the party in mass numbers, and it seems like most of them are becoming independents. what does it tell us? it tells us that a we should point out some of those folks are going on to the great ballot box in the sky. [laughter] they are here is what is important, they are not being replaced. americans think differently politically now than they did 60 years ago. party affiliation is much weaker now. people are much less likely to feel the need to affiliate with
the president with 41%. chris stirewalt is our fox news digital editor and host of power play. gym messina sent out a campaign mailer last night, yesterday, saying the latest polls show that mitt romney is going to beat barack obama if the election is held right now. the democrats are likely to turn out for the democratic candidate, the republicans are likely to turn out for the republicans, those independent numbers matter. reporter: they matter a great teal especially because mitt romney is running behind the level he should among conservative independents. mitt romney has room to grow, as far as the independent vote goes, because as we talk about independents go across the political spectrum, there are liberal independents, and conservative independents, mitt romney if he were to become the republican nominee would improve his number among independents. president obama right now is
of reagan while working under him and had skating opinions of reagan s policies. right here last night gingrich said we should ask michael if we wanted to know the truth, and we ll do that live in about 20 minutes. first we want to get to chris stirewalt who is our fox news digital editor and a host on fox news.com. we are not far from the florida primary on tuesday and it s getting to be a battle about who is closer to ronald reagan? reporter: did you rile i ever think that we d get to exactly this point. this is as mitt romney would say a money is usual kind of nominating process, and as we get down to the wire in florida, there is seeming to be some cold feet for republicans. gingrich had all the momentum, all the energy coming out of a shock win in south carolina where he won not only in a state that he was trailing in before, but by a huge margin. that was something people didn t expect. it gave them a huge boos i