PPP's latest Michigan poll after a week of Santorum shows Romney adding support across Michigan, while Santorum appears to have leveled off:
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.
It is noteworthy that Santorum's support hasn't changed much from
last week's poll. He was at 39% in that one. However, Romney is on the adding trajectory, gaining 9 points over the course of the week.
More from Tom:
Groups Santorum has double digit leads with include Protestants (up 47-30), union members (up 43-23), Evangelicals (up 51-24), Tea Partiers (up 55-20), 'very conservative' voters (up 54-23), and men (up 40-28).
Romney is leading the field with women (38-34), seniors (42-34), moderates (35-24), 'somewhat conservative' voters (40-34), and Catholics (43-31).
There are some other nuggets in the poll, but I'll let you click through and read them yourself.
What I take away from this: Romney's money and organizational advantages are gaining him support, but his negative ads aren't hurting Santorum. That means one thing: folks who were previously undecided as of last week have gotten a good look at Santorum and are moving towards Romney.
That's the kind of trajectory you want to be on. If by this weekend Romney has pulled into a close lead, it will be Santorum who will have to go negative if he still wants to win in Michigan. Santorum will have to find some sort of message that adds support beyond social conservatives. Because it is plenty clear his messages of the last week haven't won anybody over. He's going to have to go negative to keep it close if Romney keeps gaining. Or, if Santorum could count on...oh..i dunno...some sort of crazy operation by Democrats to push him over the top. That might help him.
What I do know is this: If Romney pulls out Michigan after all this, then he would have beaten both Gingrich and Santorum in two big states where each essentially went toe to toe. The Republican establishment, of course, will be quite happy to hear this. They'll know Romney has righted the ship. But if Romney loses Michigan, my god...the GOP is going to go into an implosion like you've never seen before. All the power bases within the party begin to make open war on each other.
If only there were some way Democrats could take advantage of this scenario. Eh...screw it. I'd rather have a halo.