The first night of Public Policy Polling’s (D) tracking survey of the Michigan Republican primary shows former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney taking a small lead, within the margin of error. Romney gets 39 percent of likely voters in Michigan’s GOP primary, with former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum close behind at 37 percent, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) at 13 percent and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich with nine.
Santorum has fallen off nationally after a subpar performance in the CNN Republican debate in Arizona on Wednesday. He’s surrendered the lead in the national Gallup tracking poll and lost some shine with Michigan GOP primary voters. “The last week of the campaign in Michigan has seen significant damage to Santorum’s image with GOP voters in the state,” PPP wrote in its analysis. “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).”
If Romney does pull it out Tuesday, it may be due to his superior campaign organization. From PPP:
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….
“Momentum in Michigan is completely on Mitt Romney’s side,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “He’s amassed a large lead with absentee voters and it will take a huge turnout on election day from Santorum voters to overcome that.”
The current TPM Poll Average of the Michigan Republican primary shows Romney with a 3.8 percent lead.
