Romney surge in Michigan ?

Hot Air ^ | February 20, 2012 | Ed Morrissey

[RobinMasters]

Has a Mitt Romney surge begun in Michigan? A week ago, PPP had Rick Santorum up by fifteen points in Romney’s home state. In their new poll, PPP puts Romney back only four — although Santorum hasn’t actually lost any support:

The Republican race for President in Michigan has tightened considerably over the last week, with what was a 15 point lead for Rick Santorum down to 4. He leads with 37% to 33% for Mitt Romney, 15% for Ron Paul, and 10% for Newt Gingrich.

The tightening over the last week is much more a function of Romney gaining than Santorum falling. Santorum’s favorability spread of 67/23 has seen no change since our last poll, and his share of the vote has dropped only 2 points from 39% to 37%. Romney meanwhile has seen his net favorability improve 10 points from +10 (49/39) to +20 (55/35) and his vote share go from 24% to 33%.

What we’re seeing in Michigan is a very different story from Florida where Romney surged by effectively destroying his opponent’s image- here Romney’s gains have more to do with building himself up.

[taildragger]

I have a big problem with Rick after what discussed here two days ago. The gist of it is from FR'ers and gnomes at CPAC, that fix is in, and the EGOP will give us Romeny Santorum or Santorum Romney and it is looking like collusion after the two mentioned dropped out of a debate of which Newt would have another opportunity to gain ground.

If Rick is in on such a kabal, I want no part of him...

[varon]

Romney is a “native” of no less than three states. Michigan, Massachusetts and Utah. Hmmm.

How can we in MIchigan not love a guy who thinks our trees are the right size???

[Steelfish]

If Romney carries MI, thank Gingrich.

[Darren McCarty]

I ran that by one of my good friends who has very good MIGOP connections. He's a Santorum backer and thinks there is no collusion at all.

He said that there's no way a Sterling Corp backed candidate like Romney would be in cahoots wit a Yob backed candidate like Santorum. There's no secret of bad blood between Yob and Sterling going back to the AG race in 1998 at convention between Scott Romney and John Smietanka.