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Former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania has a commanding lead among Republican presidential candidates in Texas, according to a new University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll. Santorum would get the votes of 45 percent of the respondents if the election were held today, according to the survey. The other three candidates in the GOP race — former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas — are clustered well behind. Gingrich got 18 percent, Romney received 16 percent and Paul garnered 14 percent.

A day before a campaign rally in Georgia, Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum won a suburban Atlanta straw poll with 40-percent of the vote. The straw poll was conducted Saturday, Feb. 18 by the Coweta County GOP. Continue reading on Examiner.com Santorum wins straw poll in advance of Georgia rally - Atlanta Political Buzz | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/political-buzz-in-atlanta/santorum-wins-straw-poll-advance-of-georgia-rally#ixzz1mrzjmeiA

http://twitter.com/#!/ppppolls Latest Tweets Santorum still up about 10 points on Romney in Washington state through 2 days of our polling there The first night of our polling in Arizona was pretty much a tie between Romney and Santorum Santorum leading on the first night of our new Michigan poll, but much closer than we found there a week ago

Complete breakdown at link....

Georgia Turns Into Shaky Ground for Gingrich By TRIP GABRIEL February 18, 2012 ATLANTA — If Newt Gingrich has any hope of a comeback, it must begin here, in the state he represented for 20 years as a congressman and where the haul of delegates to the Republican National Convention is the biggest prize of the Super Tuesday contests next month. Yet when asked about the once-unthinkable possibility that he might lose the primary in Georgia, where Rick Santorum is surging just as he is nationally, Mr. Gingrich offered a shrug. “Given this kind of a year, who knows?” he...

Poll: Santorum Crushing Romney In Michigan: New PPP Poll Shows Santorum up 15 percent in Romney's home state The wave of momentum Rick Santorum is riding after his victories in Colorado, Minnesotta, and Missouri last week is carrying him into Michigan. Public Policy Polling released a poll Monday showing Santorum is leading in the Great Lakes State, which is set to hold its primary on Feb. 28. In the new poll, Santorum is up 15 points on Mitt Romney, with 39 percent of those polled saying they would vote for the former Pennsylvania Senator while 24 percent support Romney. Ron...

February 17, 2012 Santorum’s Surge Holds Steady So Far By NATE SILVER Ten days after Rick Santorum’s surprisingly strong wins in the Minnesota and Colorado caucuses, there is no sign yet that his surge in the polls is abating. In the Gallup national tracking poll, for instance, Mr. Santorum’s position has continued to improve slightly, while other national polls suggest that Mr. Santorum’s position is holding steady at worst. Interpretation is rendered more difficult, however, by the fact that methodological differences among the polls seem to be producing different results. Traditional telephone polls using live interviewers have tended to show...

Rick Santorum continues to lead the Michigan Republican presidential primary. Santorum leads with 37% and is followed by Mitt Romney with 32%, Ron Paul with 15%, and Newt Gingrich with 10%. Santorum has gained 4 percentage points since a similar survey conducted February 11-12, 2012, Romney has gained 5 percentage points, and Gingrich has lost 11 percentage points since the last survey. Santorum and Romney are tied with 35% each among self-identified Republicans, followed by Paul with 15% and Gingrich with 13%. Among self-identified independents and Democrats, Santorum leads with 40%, followed by Romney with 27%, Paul with 15%, and...

In a campaign defined by Republican reluctance to embrace Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum has emerged as the latest not-Romney candidate to surge ahead. While it's impossible to predict what will happen in this volatile election season, the data suggests that Santorum might be more of a challenge for Romney than earlier flavors of the month. The latest Rasmussen Reports poll of the GOP race shows that Rick Santorum leads Mitt Romney by 12 points, 39 percent to 27 percent. Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul are far behind. In and of itself, that's nothing new. The man from Massachusetts has at...

February 14th, 2012 Poll Shows Rick Santorum Leading GOP Race In Tennessee Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has scheduled a trip to Tennessee next week while a poll indicates Rick Santorum is now leading in the state despite his lack of a campaign organization within the state. 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).

National pollsters have already released surveys showing Rick Santorum taking a lead over Mitt Romney in Romney’s native state of Michigan. Today, three state-based polls concur, showing leads from just under four points to ten points in the key battleground state. The Detroit News poll shows the tightest margin (via Politico’s Morning Blast e-mail):

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum continues to ride his polling momentum into Ohio where he leads Mitt Romney by nearly two-to-one in the first Rasmussen Reports survey of Republicans in the state. The new statewide telephone survey of Likely Republican Primary voters shows Santorum picking up 42% of the vote to Romney’s 24%. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich draws 13% support, while Texas Congressman Ron Paul picks up 10%. Three percent (3%) prefer some other candidate, and eight percent (8%) are undecided.

(TheDailyCaller.com) Rick Santorum is smoking Mitt Romney in a Rasmussen poll of Ohio Republican voters released on Thursday. Santorum gets 42 percent in the swing state, a crucial one in the general election, while Romney sits 18 points behind at 24 percent. Newt Gingrich is in third at 13 percent and Ron Paul is at 10 percent.

Barrack Obama: F- Ron Paul : D- Newt Gingrich: D Mitt Romney: C+ Rick Santorum: A-Excerpts about Rick's grades STOPPING AMNESTIES Sen. Santorum earned an A+ on stopping amnesties while in Congress. And he has challenged his own Catholic Church leaders as well as other candidates for supporting the legalization of millions of people who have broken immigration laws. MANDATE E-VERIFY. In 1996, Sen. Santorum voted against creating the program that became E-Verify. But on the campaign trail 15 years later, he has promised to push mandatory verification. He misses an EXCELLENT rating because he continues to talk about there...

NASHVILLE — Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has scheduled a trip to Tennessee next week while a poll indicates Rick Santorum is now leading in the state despite his lack of a campaign organization within the state. 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). The former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania recruited no committed delegates to appear on the Tennessee's March 6 ballot, though if he wins the state primary, he will...

One thing that has remained constant in the ever changing GOP Presidential race is that Mitt Romney is the strongest candidate against Barack Obama...at least until now.  PPP's newest national poll finds Romney trailing Obama by 7 points at 49-42, while Santorum trails by only 5 points at 49-44.This is a new development in the flavor of the month game. Over the previous 6 months when Romney first trailed Michele Bachmann, then Rick Perry, then Herman Cain, then Newt Gingrich in our national polling he still did on average 6 points better than them in our general election tests....

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, following his wins last week in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri, has now jumped ahead of Mitt Romney in Michigan's Republican Primary race. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Republican Primary Voters in Michigan shows Santorum with 35% of the vote to Romney’s 32%. Well behind are Texas Congressman Ron Paul with 13% and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich with 11%. Only one percent (1%) prefers some other candidate in the race, while eight percent (8%) are undecided.

Time for Newt to Do the Honorable Thing By DAVID CATRON on 2.14.12 Gingrich can perform one last service for the GOP, drop out and endorse Santorum. About a week after his surprising victory in the South Carolina primary, Newt Gingrich did an interview with ABC News, most of which he devoted to complaints about the tactics Mitt Romney was using against him in Florida: "We have not been as effective in telling the truth as he has been in running ads… which have had to be pulled because they were so inaccurate." His most notable remark, however, was a...

The National Review wants former House speaker Newt Gingrich to call it quits. The GOP presidential candidate has long had an uneasy relationship with the mainstream conservative press in general and National Review in particular, and he will likely dismiss the editorial as “establishment” meddling. The paper’s harsh assessment is likely the tip of the iceberg, however, and Gingrich will be forced to defend his own relevance going forward in the campaign — never a good place for a candidate to be. “[Former Pennsylvania senator Rick] Santorum has won more contests than Gingrich (who has won only one), has more...