Please site your source for this. Last, albeit local, poll for TN I saw showed Rich and Newt head to head.
ARG 2/14: The American Research Group Inc. poll, involving 600 “likely” Republican voters contacted by telephone Feb. 8-9, found Santorum favored by 34 percent, followed by Mitt Romney (27 percent), Gingrich (16 percent) and Ron Paul (13 percent).
600 is a smaller sample size, but this is the first poll published since January that I can find. Another, not picked up by the media, was Santorum winning a poll on the UT campus that included Santorum, Gingrich, Obama, Romney, and Paul. I believe Obama beat out Romney for second. (I don’t know who they polled. I cannot believe the student body as a whole would vote that way, even here in the South.)