Riding a wave of momentum from his trio of victories on Tuesday Rick Santorum has opened up a wide lead in PPP's newest national poll. He's at 38% to 23% for Mitt Romney, 17% for Newt Gingrich, and 13% for Ron Paul.
PPP
From the article:
Candidate |
Favorable opinion |
Unfavorable opinion |
F-U
|
Santorum |
64 |
22 |
42
|
Romney |
44 |
43 |
1
|
Gingrich |
42 |
44 |
-2
|
Paul |
35 |
51 |
-16
|
And what happens if the odious Newt finally decides he's had enough and goes home? Santorum surges further into the lead! If Gingrich drops out the numbers read Santorum 50%, Romney 28%, and Paul 15%. In a head to head race between Santorum and Romney (unlikely), Santorum leads 56% to 32% (a fair share of Paul voters evidently just don't like either of them - heh).
Among key Republican constituencies, Santorum is rising while Romney is sinking.
Constituency |
Santorum |
Romney |
Gingrich |
% of respondents
|
Very Conservative |
53 |
15 |
20 |
36
|
Tea Party |
51 |
12 |
24 |
29
|
Evangelicals |
45 |
18 |
21 |
49
|
Obviously there are very conservative Tea Party evangelicals out there, so there's overlap between the 3 constituencies.
Only 48% of voters say they are solidly committed. Romney is obviously about to do to Santorum what he did to Gingrich in Iowa and again in Florida - carpet bombing negative ads in every state. This is going to get ugly. And Romney, by a statistically insignificant margin, has the strongest solid support: 54%. Paul has 49%, Santorum 48%, and Gingrich 41%.
So there you have it. Romney is going to go all negative, all the time, on Rick Santorum. I'm sure his opposition research team can find some line of attack.
This plays out two ways from here:
About 85% probable: Romney is the Republican nominee, and every voter who pays attention during the primaries in their state thinks of him as a mean and ruthless candidate.
About 15% probable: Santorum is the Republican nominee and every voter who pays attention during the primaries in their state has seen him slimed like a careless Ghostbuster, with conservative-sounding attacks. Then Obama tees off on him from the left.
Either way, popcorn required.