Mitt Romney speaks to supporters after winning the Florida Primary.
Tampa, Florida -- There's one number from Florida's election results that may predict either a bumpy road or a relatively smooth ride for Mitt Romney.
This whole primary season has defied the laws of physics.
Remember that old phrase, "An object at rest tends to stay at rest. An object in motion tends to stay in motion?"
Not true! There is no momentum this year.
Rick Santorum's big surge in Iowa meant squat in New Hampshire. Mitt Romney won there, but got beaten in South Carolina. Just days after that high, Newt Gingrich's poll numbers dropped right back to earth in Florida.
And, going forward -- at least for the next couple of weeks -- things could still vary quite a bit.
On February 4th, there's a caucus in Nevada and from February 4th through 11th, there are caucuses in Maine.
Ron Paul is expected to do especially well in those, so what that means for the other candidates is tough to predict.
Then on February 7th, there are caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota, with a primary in Missouri.
Rick Santorum has already headed to those midwestern states in hopes of playing spoiler.
During Tuesday morning's election special 10 News reporter Grayson Kamm covered one number that would come out of the Florida election results and may tell us a whole lot.
It could predict either a bumpy road or a relatively smooth one for Mitt Romney.
That number is not his margin of victory, or the fact that Romney had enough votes to beat both Santorum and Gingrich combined. Although both of those numbers are certainly significant.
The big number comes from the CBS News exit polling.
They asked voters: do you consider yourself conservative? If so, then whom did you vote for?
Self-identified conservatives went for Romney over Gingrich, 41 percent to 37 percent.
This is a really positive sign for Mitt Romney. Gingrich had been banking on conservatives to go big for him, and instead, they were basically a tossup.
What's this mean? Romney has a strong chance to beat Gingrich even in heavily conservative states like Georgia and Tennessee, which vote next month.
And it means conservatives are willing to swallow hard and vote for Romney, even though he has switched from past liberal positions on abortion and gay rights.
Only about one tenth of the delegates needed to stand on the stage in August at the Tampa Bay Times Forum and accept the Republican nomination have been awarded so far.
And there are no more winner-take-all states until April.
So, the process isn't finished. But after Tuesday night, it looks more promising for the man from Massachusetts.