Santorum moves ahead in Michigan (Santorum 39, Romney 24, Paul 12, Gingrich 11)

Public Policy Polling ^ | 2/13/12 | staff

[TexasFreeper2009]

Rick Santorum's taken a large lead in Michigan's upcoming Republican primary. He's at 39% to 24% for Mitt Romney, 12% for Ron Paul, and 11% for Newt Gingrich.

Santorum's rise is attributable to two major factors: his own personal popularity (a stellar 67/23 favorability) and GOP voters increasingly souring on Gingrich. Santorum's becoming something closer and closer to a consensus conservative candidate as Gingrich bleeds support.

Santorum's winning an outright majority of the Tea Party vote with 53% to 22% for Romney and 10% for Gingrich. He comes close to one with Evangelicals as well at 48% to 20% for Romney and 12% for Gingrich. And he cracks the 50% line with voters identifying as 'very conservative' at 51% to 20% for Romney and 10% for Gingrich.

Santorum's benefiting from the open nature of Michigan's primary as well. He's only up by 12 points with actual Republican voters, but he has a 40-21 advantage with the Democrats and independents planning to vote that pushes his overall lead up to 15 points. Santorum is winning by a healthy margin in every region of the state except for Oakland County, where Romney has a 40-26 advantage, and the area around Lansing where Paul actually has an advantage at 30% to 27% for both Romney and Santorum.

[Darren McCarty]

Can anyone interpret this???

Polling groups are biased, but usually try to be accurate and professional (outside of push polls or released internals).

PPP and EPIC/MRA lean dem.
ARG and Mitchell lean Republican.
I've seen Mitchell give better dem numbers than EPIC/MRA.

[Antoninus]

I would never have thought that he could do it, but apparently he is.

I didn't either, but here we are. He's a good man.

[Darren McCarty]

BTW - here's the crosstabs

70% GOP
26% Indy
4% Democrat

BTW - There are no registered parties in Michigan. Anyone can call themselves anything they want.

[ohioWfan]

So Saint Rick has never made any mistakes that speak to his character.

I stopped reading here. You entirely missed the point, and there's no reason to think you'll be able to understand anything else said on the subject.

[AFPhys]

As much as it disturbs me, given that I have long associated PPP with DUh, PPP has done a very credible job of polling over the last 3-4 years or so. They seem to manage to get rapid swings accurately, somehow - I believe they were one of the first to publish the swing toward Mr.Newt in SC ... let me check RealClearPolitics on that ... http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/sc/south_carolina_republican_presidential_primary-1590.html#polls ... yes, my memory of that is accurate.

PPP has been doing increasingly well these last few years.

PS- it has been a long time since I’ve even thought about DUh (AKA DemocratsUnderground ... I kinda wonder how they are doing over there)

[Sun]

“I’m sure the Romney smear machine will be putting itself on overdrive.”

Rick could use our help in fighting the Romney smear machine for those who can affrod to contribute. Even a little helps, as it all adds up.

http://www.ricksantorum.com/

[ohioWfan]

Hard to say if it's actual insanity, or just an act.

I'm leaning toward the latter, as a sorry attempt to get attention.

Nevertheless, psycho is obviously a sensitive soul who can't take any criticism without crying and lashing out, so perhaps we'd best leave the poor boy alone.

[ohioWfan]

And like another here, you will also be ignored from here on.

Hey there.......weren't you just whining and calling someone a 'coward' for talking about you without pinging you?

Yet another example of your hypocrisy (using the actual definition of the word, and not your made-up one).

[AFPhys]

I suspect from their terse description their sample consisted of people called at random who said they are registered voters and were intending to vote in the MI GOP primary. Unlikely that they did any further cuts or verification questions.

[RichardMoore]

Amen to that, Santorum is the only one left standing who has any guts and honesty. I know that Romney cannot beat Obama just as McCain and Dole couldn’t win. You can see it in their eyes.

[Sun]

“Here are his ratings from when he was in Congress:

American Conservative Union — 88%
National Right to Life Committee — 100%
Americans for Tax Reform — 95%
National Tax Limitation Committee — 92%
U.S. Chamber of Commerce — 88%
League of Private Property Voters — 94%

Now remember, this is Santorum’s House ratings, in a DEMOCRAT district. How many Republicans in Democrat areas vote this conservative?”

http://www.redstate.com/wosg/2012/01/06/rick-santorum-yes-he-is-a-true-conservative/

Santorum IS a conservative, and always was a conservative, even when it risked his political career, he STAYED conservative.

[Norseman]

Good post, and he got re-elected by a large majority to his House seat, and then beat a Dem incumbent for his Senate seat. Santorum is the one candidate who’s been elected and re-elected in a Dem area without abandoning his principles, unlike Romney, who resets his principles depending upon the electoral base he’s after next.

As for his support for Spector, according to Wikipedia, Spector was instrumental in helping Santorum win the Senate seat in 1994, so Santorum didn’t abandon Spector even though Spector was well off the GOP reservation many times. That speaks to character, although I’m sure it was tough for Santorum to do.

[madison10]

Wish I could move west...

Go, Rick!

[Tennessee Nana]

Oh noez

the MI gov’s son is dissed...

[ichabod1]

Yes and I’ll never forgive the state of pennsylvania for doing that.

[GeronL]

This is awesome. Supposedly one of the several “home” states of Romney.

[Norseman]

>>Any scare tactics against Santorum’s social conservatism will backfire.<<

Probably. After all, as liberal as California appears, the voters did vote to uphold traditional marriages.

[GeronL]

Paul is being propelled by Democrat votes crossing over in their own operation chaos.