The latest Public Polling Policy polls of voters in Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado shows Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum is surging in all three states.
The former Pennsylvania senator is leading Republican front-runner Mitt Romney in Missouri, with 45 percent of the votes there compared to 32 percent for Mr. Romney. Texas congressman Ron Paul places in third place in Missouri with 19 percent of the votes.
In Colorado, Mr. Santorum has surged into second place, trailing Mr. Romney who leads there 37-27 percent.
The poll shows that the race is the tightest for the Minnesota Republican caucuses, where Mr. Santorum is also surging. The former senator garners 33 percent of the votes there trailed by Mr. Romney at 24 percent.
Mr. Gingrich finished in third place in the poll of Minnesota voters with 22 percent of the votes, trailed by Mr. Paul at 20 percent.
Additionally, the poll shows that 35 percent of the voters in Minnesota say that they are still undecided.
In the two days following his huge win in Nevada, Mr. Romney’s campaign unleashed a series of attacks against Mr. Santorum to chip away at his surging popularity in Minnesota. In addition to several press releases aimed at attacking Mr. Santorum on his website, Mr. Romney’s campaign deployed former Minnesota Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty.
Mr. Pawlenty participated in a conference call in Minnesota on Monday where he attacked Mr. Santorum’s record as a conservative.
“As a U.S. Senator, he was a leading earmarker and pork-barrel spender. He described himself as ‘very proud’ of the billions of dollars in pork-barrel projects he championed, and promised to defend the wasteful spending,” said Mr. Pawlenty on Monday.
Mr. Santorum responded to Mr. Pawlenty’s comments by calling it a typical move by Mr. Romney’s campaign.
“He just simply goes out and attacks and tries to destroy, I don’t think its going to work this time,” said Mr. Santorum Monday, MSNBC reports.
The PPP poll shows that Mr. Santorum is receiving the majority of his support in all three states from voters who identify themselves as evangelical Christians. Tea Party Republicans, and “very conservative” voters.
Throughout various interviews and nationally televised debates thus far in the Republican primary race, Mr. Santorum has called out Mr. Romney as not having a record of a “true conservative.” Mr. Gingrich has made similar claims about the Bain Capital co-founder, constantly referring to him as a “Massachusetts moderate.”
“PPP surveyed 938 likely Republican caucus voters in Colorado with a margin of error of +/-3.2% and 864 likely Republican caucus voters in Minnesota with a margin of error of +/-3.3% on February 4th and 6th, as well as 958 likely primary voters in Missouri on February 6th with a margin of error of +/-3.2%,” said the PPP pollsters in the press release accompanying the poll results.
If Mr. Santorum can pull off two wins on Tuesday, the result would dramatically affect the Republican primary race.
Despite Mr. Romney’s two huge wins in Florida and Nevada, there have only been a total of 143 delegate votes awarded out of the five states that have voted so far. That still leaves 1,001 votes needed for the 1,144 majority of delegate votes required to win the Republican nomination.
