Sunshine State Warm to Giuliani, But His Poll Position Falls Sharply

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla.

T here's always a Yankees hat in the crowd, always an FDNY T-shirt, and always the borough accents. And when Rudolph W. Giuliani finally arrives at a typical campaign stop in this place 1,000 miles from the Empire State, he provokes a Gotham-style scrum of celebrity.

Rudy! Rudy! Ova heah! I wanna take a picsha.

"Whenever you say 'Brooklyn,' you get applause," Giuliani quipped at an event in Boca Raton.

Giuliani's Republican primary campaign may have been pummeled in other states, but it is clinging to life in Florida, thanks in part to the hordes of New Yorkers who now call this state home.

They flock to his appearances here, nodding solemnly when he describes New York City's crime and joblessness when he became mayor, and applauding, even tearing up, when he alludes to his role on Sept. 11, 2001.

"He's a famous person," said Kevin Bronner, 59, a New Yorker who now lives on Singer Island, speaking at a Giuliani event at a New York-style deli here. "I can still remember him on 9/11, walking down -- Church Street, was it? -- wearing a mask."

For more than 40 years, the rush of people from New York to Florida has ranked as the largest state-to-state migration in the country, and now the votes of those transplanted New Yorkers could play a critical role in the former mayor's campaign, which has fallen precipitously in polls.

Using voter-registration lists and census data, the campaign has tracked tens of thousands of people who have moved to Florida from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania -- and then sought them out with either a phone call or a mailing.

"Anyone we can get an address or phone for, we have contacted," said Elliott Bundy, a campaign spokesman.

Campaign officials are reluctant to divulge how much those transplants figure in their strategy, but there are signs they play a considerable role.

Raj Sikand, 42, a volunteer organizer for the Giuliani campaign in northern Palm Beach County, estimated that of the phone calls he has made for the campaign, 25 to 50 percent have gone to people who have metro New York accents -- and that doesn't count upstaters whose accents are less pronounced.