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

He noted that many New Yorkers view Giuliani from a different, more local perspective.

"His role in 9/11 is how he is known nationally," Sikand said after a Giuliani appearance here Tuesday. "But the personal stories I hear on the phone from New Yorkers is how he cleaned up the city. They remember."

Whether the focus on New York transplants can steady the faltering campaign is an open question, however.

Although Giuliani once led the Republican primary field in Florida by a wide margin, a new St. Petersburg Times poll shows him trailing former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) by significant margins.

Not all of the New York transplants who have come out to see Giuliani in Florida are Republicans. His supporters here include Democrats, who helped propel him to large margins of victory in his mayoral races but who are ineligible to cast a ballot in Florida's primary, which is restricted to registered Republicans.

The flow of people from New York to Florida has been immense at least since the 1950s, said Stanley K. Smith, director of the University of Florida's Bureau of Economic and Business Research, who has studied migrations to the state.

Between 1995 and 2000, for example, 308,000 people moved from New York to Florida; 119,000 more arrived here from New Jersey.

And if sporting events are any guide, the allegiances of the New York transplants are long-lasting.

Even at sporting events in Miami, Yankees fans sometimes seem to outnumber Marlins fans, and Jets fans outnumber those for the Dolphins.

"In a crowded field, a committed block of voters is very valuable," said Susan MacManus, a professor of political science at the University of South Florida who has long studied the state's politics. "Judging from where he's campaigning, he's micro-targeting large concentrations of older, high-turnout transplant New Yorkers."

At his campaign stops, the New York allegiance among the crowd is often vivid -- and loud.

At the event at the New York-style deli here -- blintzes, knishes and corned beef -- many, probably most, in the crowd spoke in an accent that betrayed New York roots.

Speaking to the crowd inside the deli, the candidate ran through his stump speech: his inclination to cut taxes, his interest in energy independence.

He moves from the catastrophe of Sept. 11 to hurricanes and announces his support for national catastrophe insurance to help cut the state's burdensome wind-insurance rates.

When the mayor, who supports abortion rights, is challenged by social conservatives, the New Yorkers rally loudly to his defense. After an antiabortion protester showed up to heckle Giuliani, a woman in a brilliant-blue New York Giants jacket confronted him on the sidewalks, drowning him out by bellowing over and over: "Have you ever been raped? . . . Have you ever been raped?"

Eventually, a dark-suited man from Giuliani's security detail broke it up.

"I'm just listening to the accents here," said Dennis Kelley, 50, a construction contractor who moved from Buffalo to Florida a year ago. He wore a New York Fire Department T-shirt. "Everyone -- Brooklyn, Manhattan, Jersey -- is here."

"People remember how it was on 9/11," he said. "There's a kinship."