Most polls predict a sizable victory for Mitt Romney in Florida. How did this happen? How did Newt Gingrich lose his grip on the state? Money, that’s how.

Gingrich’s shadow pockets were unable to defend his shallow politics.

In fact, several new reports suggest that he was severely outspent by the Mitt Romney money machine. According to an ABC News report on Friday, for example:

Newt Gingrich is not just getting outspent by Mitt Romney and his allies on the Florida airwaves, he’s getting creamed. The Romney campaign and a super PAC supporting him is spending nearly quadruple the amount that Gingrich and the pro-Gingrich super PAC, Winning Our Future, has spent to air television and radio ads ahead of the state’s Jan. 31 primary. So far, Romney has bought $5.6 million worth of airtime and the pro-Romney super PAC, Restore Our Future, has shelled out a whopping $8.2 million, according to a Republican media buyer who is tracking ad spending in the state. Compare that to $837,000 spent by the Gingrich campaign and the nearly $3 million of airtime bought by Winning Our Future, a super PAC supporting the former House speaker, and it’s easy to understand one reason why Gingrich has slipped in the most recent polls in the Sunshine State.

The final tally of ad spending could be even more lopsided, Talking Points Memo reported on Sunday:

According to some final numbers shared with T.P.M. by a Democratic media observer, Mitt Romney’s lucky number in the final push is five. As in five-to-one: that’s the ratio — just about — by which Romney and his allies have outspent Newt Gingrich and his allies on TV. The narrative that Team Romney is pushing is that of a new-and-improved candidate, battle-hardened after his South Carolina woes, and sharpened as a candidate by having had to outsmart Newt Gingrich. The Dems think these spending figures suggest something else: that it’s not Romney who’s winning votes in Florida, but the size of his wallet. According to my Democratic source, the total ad spending through Tuesday in Florida by the Romney campaign and its allied super PAC, Restore Our Future, is $15,340,000. The total spending for Gingrich’s campaign and his super PAC, Winning Our Future, is $3,390,000.

If you just look at super Pac spending, you see how damaging it can be. Here’s the Huffington Post on Saturday:

The biggest spender in Florida — the most expensive state in the Republican primary to date — has been the pro-Romney super PAC Restore Our Future. Run by a trio of former Romney advisers, the group has spent $10.7 million in the state. The vast majority of that — $9.9 million — has gone into a barrage of ads, on television and radio, and direct mail attacking Gingrich. That’s more than double what pro-Gingrich super PAC Winning Our Future is spending in Florida.

This is not what happened in South Carolina, where Winning Our Future was able to match the spending of Restore Our Future and provide Gingrich with room to win.

There can be no doubt that this level of spending helped to reshape the race in Florida. It also didn’t help that Gingrich’s two Florida debates were not as full of bombast as the two in South Carolina.

But the problem for Romney is that voting for him has never been about him. It has always been, and continues to be, about a dearth of options. Romney is the default candidate, not the preferred one. His money can buy him votes, but it can’t buy him love.