Michigan Republican primary
If the Michigan Republican primary election were held today, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum would defeat rival candidate Mitt Romney, according to an American Research Group poll released Monday.
Mr. Santorum is coming off a week during which he won three primary victories prior to losing the Maine Republican caucuses on Saturday to Mr. Romney. The former Senator finished the ARG poll with 33 percent of the votes, compared to 27 percent for Mr. Romney.
The poll results show that Mr. Santorum’s argument that Mr. Romney is not a truly conservative candidate is working. Voters who identified themselves as Republicans choose Mr. Santorum over Mr. Romney 42 percent to 18 percent. Mr. Santorum is also doing better than former House Speaker Newt Gingrich among voters in Michigan who identify themselves as Republicans.
Furthermore Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Santorum can also use the poll results to support their argument about Mr. Romney being a more moderate Republican, because the poll results also showed that 48 percent of voters who identified themselves as either Democrats or Independents select Mr. Romney compared to 13 percent of that group for Mr. Gingrich and 11 percent for Mr. Santorum.
Mr. Gingrich finished the poll in third place behind Mr. Romney and Mr. Santorum with 21 percent, compared to 12 percent for Mr. Paul.
Time will play a significant factor in the Michigan Republican primary election though, which does not occur until February 28th. Republican primary voters have constantly changed their minds in 2012, with all of the remaining candidates surging and declining in popularity at one time or another.
Michigan and Arizona will be the first two primary elections where there is a significant amount of time off in between state elections or caucuses. That leaves plenty of time for all four candidates to spend money on ads in Michigan and Arizona, as well as to court voters in both states with on the ground campaign appearances.
Mr. Romney was born and raised in Michigan, but he can’t quite claim a home field advantage the way he has been able to in New England states, where he has two victories already in Maine and New Hampshire.
It will also be interesting to see how voters in Michigan react to Mr. Romney’s opposition to the Obama administration’s bail out of the auto industry.
President Barack Obama used the auto industry’s revival in Michigan as a symbol of the success of his policies over the past three years during his State of the Union speech in January. All four remaining candidates have maintained their positions that the Obama administration’s stimulus plan was a bad idea, which will be difficult to explain to the thousands of workers in Michigan who were able to either return to work or keep their jobs because of it.
The ARG poll was conducted between February 11th and February 12th, so the timing of the poll and the result with Mr. Santorum leading shows that voters in Michigan were likely influenced by Mr. Santorum’s three state sweep last week.
The poll included a sample size of 600 Democratic, Republican and Independent voters in Michigan with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.
