Posted on 03/28/2012 7:42:45 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
April will be a tough month for Rick Santorum. The primary schedule has nine contests next month ... three on Tuesday, a non-binding caucus in Missouri (again!), and five primaries on the 24th. The two most likely states for a Santorum win are winner-take-all Wisconsin on the 3rd and the candidate's home state of Pennsylvania on the 24th. Santorum trails in the latest Wisconsin polling, and a new poll by Frank & Marshall College suggests that his support back home has declined significantly:
Rick Santorum appeared to be the Republican presidential candidate to beat in Pennsylvania a month ago.
With the state primary four weeks away, Santorum now finds himself nearly tied with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney among the state’s Republicans, and support is eroding rapidly, according to a Franklin & Marshall College poll out today. …
The poll of 505 registered Republican voters, conducted March 20-25 in conjunction with the Tribune-Review and other media outlets, shows Santorum clinging to a small lead over Romney, 30 percent to 28 percent, within the poll’s 4.2 percent margin of error.
That’s a big change from February, when Santorum, once a U.S. senator from Penn Hills, held a commanding 15-percentage-point lead over Romney in the poll.
This survey samples registered Republicans rather than likely voters, but since Pennsylvania has a closed direct election of delegates, only Republicans were surveyed. The sample of 505 Republicans is significant enough to matter, although it will be interesting to see how well this aligns with other polls using larger samples of likely voters — say, Rasmussen or Survey USA.
What happened in the last month? FMC reports that the importance of beating Obama has jumped ten points to 25% as the highest priority for voters. Strong moral character still leads, but only barely at 26%, down from 36% in February. The other two categories are “true conservative” (16%) and “the right experience” (21%). That presents a muddy picture, and without crosstabs it’s difficult to see how this priorities played into voter choices.
On the surface, it makes it look as though voters won’t have much reason to choose between the two front-runners. Santorum still gets higher favorables (54/26) than Romney (46/25), but that may change when Romney starts focusing on Pennsylvania after next Tuesday. The other states holding primaries on the 24th are New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Delaware — all states that Romney should win easily. Romney can afford to try a knockout blow in the Keystone State in the three weeks open to him.
If Santorum can’t carry Pennsylvania, the race will be over. Team Santorum had better hope this is an outlier.
At the same time they were putting this poll together, Santorum was winning the straw poll at the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference by nearly a two to one margin. I have to wonder if this is like the Wisconsin poll where they polled 45% Democrats to make Santorum look to be failing.
Or else the inevitability that Romney will win has set in.
Yes, that is in the back of my mind. The MSM really wants Romney to be the loser this November and are pushing hard to create the impression of inevitability.
I can't even begin fathom the mental processes that would lead someone to cite a straw poll as evidence to counter a real poll.
And the establishment Republicans that are scared to death because they remember the loss of 1964 when they ran a Conservative ... Of course they have conveniently forgotten about Ford, GHWB, Dole, and McCain And are the same ones that thought Alf Landon and Wendel Wilkie were the perfect candidates to take on FDR
Frank and Marshall College? </facepalm>
They need a catagory for "not saying something incredibly stupid".
Actually, according to RCP, the Franklin poll in February had Santorum up by 29%, not 15%.
Clearly this poll is subject to wild swings. Most pollsters have been ignoring this state, so it will be interesting to see a Rasmussen poll or a couple more of the other big pollsters coming back through.
Also, the Franklin poll in February was 278 REGISTERED voters, so it wasn’t much of a poll at all.
And this poll is only 500 “likely voters”, however they decided to define that.
It’s not as if this would be the first time for Santorum to be rejected by his own home state.
But what do they know?
Now, Freepers can claim fraud, they can hide their heads in the sand and pretend Rick is going to pull it out, but Romney is the nominee. I've accepted that.
And I've also accepted that either Romney or Obama will be the next president. To me there is no choice. I will not be Sweden in the fight between the West (even with Stalin as an ally) and Hitler.
Of the 505 people randomly selected for the poll, were all registered Republican voters.
In the other poll you pointed out, it was a random poll taken from the general population. Of course 45% are going to be Democrats. After all, this IS Wisconsin we are talking about.
Once Romney is hit as he hit the others, this will turn into a Mondale style blow out for Obama. I hope people still vote to keep the House and gain the Senate, but cannot expect Romney to excite the electorate enough for that either. In any case, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania will tell us a lot.
I said early on 0bama should have been taken into custody by the military. Grounds of non-eligibility, treason, economic terrorism or whatever. They failed to do that. Now the military itself has ‘gone Obama’. Back to my cave to live out a few more months in solitude.
There is simply no way in reality that a president with approval ratings in the low 40s will EVER see a "blowout," and quite a number of ways that tiny tilts in several states could cause a blowout against him.
Either way, either Obama or Romney will be president this time next year.
Between Romney and Santorum, at least Romney has a chance to beat Obama, which is why Romney is gaining in the polls.
There is every indication that Newt's votes are already moving over to Romney, since Romney is viewed by the majority for our side, as having the best chance of winning against the Marxist.
Don't blame me either, I wanted Newt, but that is not going to happen. And Santorum would be a complete disaster if he wins the nomination. (Which is also not going to happen)
-—”Or, it actually MIGHT be that the majority of Republicans want Romney.”-—
No, but it seems that a PLURALITY of GOP Primary voters do support Mitt Romney, overwhelmingly for the reason that they would apparently nominate ANYONE they thought had the best chance to beat Obama.
A MAJORITY of the voters wants someone else.
Weak. Weak. Weak. Romney is disturbingly weak.
“Weak, weak, weak.” I agree. Like Rush, I live in realville. Either Romney or Obama will be president. I’m going to do what I can to make sure it’s not Obama.
The more state losses for Romney the better for conservatives!
Why doesn’t FR use its influence to encourage trying to hurt Romney? Unless you support Romney you must fight against him!
A strong conservative fight against Romney will help us remain relevant to the GOP and to elections in general!
Folding like we always do and getting in line behind the phony republican the liberals choose for our nominee is WRONG!
We need to fight to the end! Miracles don’t happen unless you are trying!
Vote Santorum to stop Romney! Yes, Santorum would be a better president, but more importantly it’s our only chance to fight against Romney in any way at the convention.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.