Romney takes small Michigan lead

Mitt Romney's taken a small lead over Rick Santorum in PPP's newest Michigan poll. He's at 39% to 37% for Santorum, 13% for Ron Paul, and 9% for Newt Gingrich. Compared to a week ago Romney's gained 6 points, while Santorum's just stayed in place.

Romney will go into election day with a large lead in the bank. Only 16% of Michigan voters say they've already cast their ballots, but Romney has a whooping 62-29 advantage over Santorum with that group. Santorum actually leads Romney 39-34 with those who are planning to cast their votes on Tuesday, but he'd need to win election day voters by even more than that to neutralize the advantage Romney's built up.

The last week of the campaign in Michigan has seen significant damage to Santorum's image with GOP voters in the state. His net favorability has declined 29 points from +44 (67/23) to now only +15 (54/39). Negative attacks on Romney meanwhile have had no negative effect with his favorability steady at +20 (57/37). Two weeks ago Santorum's net favorability in Michigan was 34 points better than Romney's. Now Romney's is 5 points better than Santorum's. Those kinds of wild swings are the story of the GOP race.

One place Santorum may have hurt himself in the last week is an overemphasis on social issues. 69% of voters say they're generally more concerned with economic issues this year to only 17% who pick social issues. And with the overwhelming majority of voters more concerned about the economy, Romney leads Santorum 45-30. Santorum's winning those more concerned about social issues 79-12 but it's just not that big a piece of the pie.

Romney has made significant in roads with all of Santorum's key groups of support. 2 weeks ago Santorum had leads around 30 points with Evangelicals, Tea Party voters, and those describing themselves as 'very conservative.' Santorum's still winning all those groups, but by significantly diminished margins- it's only 7 points with Evangelicals and Tea Partiers and 10 with 'very conservative' Republicans.

Romney's key base of support in Michigan, as it has been many places, is seniors. He has a 50-34 advantage with them and since most of those who have already voted fall into the over 65 category, that's a big part of why he has such a large lead with that group.

Other notes from Michigan:

-Romney is winning union households 40-29 over Santorum, just another data point suggesting that his bailout stance isn't going to be a big problem for him at least in the primary.

-Only 5% of likely primary voters are Democrats and they're splitting their votes 28-28 between Romney and Santorum...it doesn't look like the 2012 version of 'Operation Chaos' is getting off the ground.

Full results here

Comments

[King_Malcom]

the media will cry is mitt wins both AZ and MI, and declare MI wasnt that important anyways

[Obama 2012]

My guess is that Romney ends up winning Michigan by about 10 points. Santorum has just let too much of his crazy out lately. I think the wheels are coming off just in time for Romney to score a bigger than expected win as the late decision makers will be seeing stuff about Santorum that's just flat out nuts (like that he doesn't believe in the separation of church & state...) ... with these two wins it'll be hard to see anything but Romney coasting to victory the rest of the way... although considering everything that's happened so far... maybe Gingrich will come back from the dead.

[Joe]

Do we want Romneycare to replace Obamacare? Do we want a fake to run for president, a candidate who changes opinion every week? Or do we want a true candidate, who can beat Obama and take back the White House? Santorum 2012!!!

[Peter]

Romney make look like a typical politician but Santorum IS a typical, standard, vanilla, Washington politician. All he has ever done was to be a 2 time Senator until he lost huge the third time. His track record shows that he is just exactly like the kind of politicain we are trying to get rid of. In the last debate he did not even try to hide it. He is all about ear marks, and voting for his team and not his conscience.

I used to think he might be a good president with 8 years more experience but now I want nothing to do with him.

[Sophie]

I'm really surprised that in this result, no early voters stated that they voted for Ron Paul; early/absentee voters tend to represent campaigns with more enthusiastic voters (or better-organized campaigns), and that seems to describe the main strength of the Paul campaign.

In addition, Paul is generally considered to be strong among university students, and the Republican primary takes place during spring break at the University of Michigan, so most of the students are home for the week. On the other hand, they could very well be voting at their pre-university address, rather than school address.

Note: I'm a left-wing Democrat who strongly disagrees with Paul on almost all issues, but is nevertheless voting for him tomorrow, since he's the only Republican candidate who appears to have some actual principles, and a Paul campaign that receives a few hundred delegates might be able to restore a modicum of sanity at the Republican convention.

[aristo martin]

Both these guys, I mean Romney and Santorum are bought up by Jewish lobby. It is clear that they are pushed forward by their Zionist benefactors for the only purpose of promoting Israel position and ascertain that Israel receives their annual multi-billion stipend. I am an independent voter, white and Christian that respects Israeli people right to exist in a safe country. Playing with Iran and pushing them to corner will have grave consequences for Western Economies. Did anybody think about the fact that China and Russia do not need advanced military capability to bring us together with western European powers down. Its enough that price of oil jumps to $200 per barrel. Romney or Santorum together with their Neo-Con and Zionist friends will continue their lives after Presidency same as George Bush "Happily everafter" while our lives will be devastated.