Santorum surges into the lead (National poll Santorum 38%, Romney 23%)

Public Policy Polling ^ | 02/11/2012 | Public Policy Polling

[Rational Thought]

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.

Part of the reason for Santorum's surge is his own high level of popularity. 64% of voters see him favorably to only 22% with a negative one. But the other, and maybe more important, reason is that Republicans are significantly souring on both Romney and Gingrich. Romney's favorability is barely above water at 44/43, representing a 23 point net decline from our December national poll when he was +24 (55/31). Gingrich has fallen even further. A 44% plurality of GOP voters now hold a negative opinion of him to only 42% with a positive one. That's a 34 point drop from 2 months ago when he was at +32 (60/28).

[alstewartfan]

No, I prefer Sarah. But they both *get it*, that our Constitutional freedoms and economic system are nearing collapse. That’s all I have to say to you. Bob

[1hedLyte]

If the economy turns around, no one would beat Obama anyway.
Call me crazy, but I see the making of the kiss of death in this image.

[FresnoRobert]

He is trending strong. The polls in Michigan are looking good too! That would put a real knife into Mitt. He really likes to hang his hat on his Pop’s involvement in the auto industry and it was common thought that Mitt was unbeatable there.

Go Rick! Beat Obama!

[Cboldt]

-- ... the best we Newt supporters could hope for now is a Santorum/Newt ticket. --

The landscape will change (again). What this shifting around of "leads in the polls" shows is that the public's preference is manipulable.

[American Constitutionalist]

" I have a feeling this poll is Santorum’s high-water mark. He has already started saying things that his supporters have to “explain” and “clarify.” ......

Riiiiight.... so ? it's not the same when Newt had to " re clarify " what he said last May that he support individual mandates, and a day later had to " re clarify " it ?

[Cboldt]

-- What's truly astonishing is none of these guys that I can tell (except Paul, who's rightly called a "moonbat" for other reasons) are talking about CUTTING GOVERNMENT .. --

Gingrich is. His CPAC speech had a few enumerated "cuts" in it, and he said that spending had to be cut, regulations needed to be repealed, etc.

[PSYCHO-FREEP]

Well, if God had anything to do with it, how do you explain Roe Vs Wade, and the current Democrat Party, not to mention who was elected President?

(Be very careful how you dictate God's will. You might be more “self appointed” than you realize)

[LiamH]

I support Newt Gingrich and think he will be stronger against 0bama, but if Santorum continues to pull ahead I will have little problem supporting him for the nominee. The important thing is to defeat Obama and to prevent Romney from destroying the conservative movement and the Republican Party (which he will if he is the nominee). I do feel that Santorum will have a harder time winning the general than Newt, but he can still win and I do trust that he will make decent appointments to the Supreme Court.

[alstewartfan]

I’m talking about resonating messages. What about Santorum’s message is disagreeable? Frankly, I think he’s right on target. *I* believe that Americans’ faith, freedom and prosperity are at stake, and by supporting TARP, cap and trade, and health control mandates, the others are not on my side. Bob

[Pinkbell]

Where are the comments now that Santorum is in the race because he’s there to be spoiler for Romney, is working for Romney, is expecting to be Romney’s VP, etc?

Where are the comments that Newt should drop out because he his splitting the vote? That’s what we Santorum supporters always got when Rick was behind in the polls.

[JudgemAll]

Hmmmm... Newt has been in the middle of the Tparty and all this from the get go. He continues this fumbling of “no no, let me do it, I got this”, like Iceman to Maverick in Top Gun, and I wonder if he is lying or not.

[Williams]

There really is a major problem with the conservative base ultimately being convinced they’re not happy with anyone. All these candidates were ok with me, but as they attack each other - successfully - Obama is regaining popularity.

We already have people here “demonstrating” that Santorum is some kind of big government conservative/ liberal. Also, he does have his faults as a candidate. Those being he looks very young and he is not a great speaker. Barely a good speaker.

Oh well it is interesting, I wouldn’t mind a convention newcomer to spark excitement. Man, wouldn’t Marco Rubio for President be exciting?

[ohioWfan]

You're a Paul guy, aren't you?

Of course, as a libertarian who supports no morality in government, you couldn't be for someone as pro-life and pro-family as Rick Santorum.

[C. Edmund Wright]

I did not mean to imply equivalency, because you are right, proportionally and chronologically they were not equivalent.

[GulfBreeze]

Well the “obvious” point is that even if he’s written encyclopedia’s otherwise, when he drops a post that simply says “except that once vetted, Santorum will prove to be a shamefully weak candidate.” With nothing in the particular post or earlier in the thread, I have no frame of reference for what he is talking about so I asked for it.

Who are all the other writers for the PAC you mentioned? I don’t know them either. But if they put a post on a thread and I don’t know the context and I think it is unsupported, I will point it out.

[C. Edmund Wright]

You can call it snubbery if you want and you can pull a tiny snippet out of context all you want - and it changes not a whit that my criticism was one hundred per cent on the money and totally applicable to those it was aimed at.

[TitansAFC]

Easy, pilgrim.

Super Tuesday is in a month. Let’s wait three weeks and see where things stand.

NEVER get on the bandwagon of a bump too quickly. Stick with the guy who has staying power. Let’s see if Rick can demonstrate it better than after Iowa.

[ohioWfan]

Thanks. :)

[sand88]

It was nothing short of awe inspiring and electrifying! It's embarrassing to watch this ship of fools who calls themselves the CONservative base, so caught up in their arrogant opinions of themselves, turn their backs on the most intellectual solution and most obvious professional who is qualified and capable to fix this mess, only to go for a moronic dolt like Santorum with totally blind abandon.

Newt's speech was indeed electrifying. He is throwing very, very specific goals out to his opponents. All the others running have not at all approached Newt's specifics.

At CPAC, Newt specifically said he would outright eliminate the EPA is because it is filled with far out leftists (paraphrasing) The way he spoke in detail of that one issues shows Newt is forming a strong Liberty platform. Instead of just saying I will eliminate dept x he gave strong reasons for doing so. I believe he to be serious, focused and moving towards a strong position of removing power for Washington.

Rick's speech was very short on specifics and filled with bromides. At the end of the day, there is no real "there" there with Rick -- just conservative platitudes. On Fiscal matters, his record belies a lot of what he now states. That is the cold hard truth.

I have no doubt with Newt, that he would push hard to follow through.

[C. Edmund Wright]

You are partially correct and you hit the single most important difference: But not only is Santorum not black, he is also not:

A: cool (sweater vest)
B: going to be protected by the media (they HATE social conservatives)
C: devoid of any political record (very wimpy record)
D: charismatic (yeah, right)

And on and on.