A new snap poll of the Michigan Republican primary shows a dead heat going into the vote on Tuesday. A new Mitchell Research poll shows former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum up by two points on former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, 37 – 35. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich gets nine percent and Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) sees eight.
Santorum had lost the lead in the last five polls of the state, including the last numbers that Mitchell Research, a Michigan pollster, released. But Mitchell said that the race has changed since Thursday, with Santorum winning back some of the conservative support he lost to Romney:
“There is an overlay between social and fiscal conservatives. Romney’s straegy has been to win over all conservatives by hammering Santorum on the fact that he is not the fiscal conservative he claimed to be. Up until the weekend, that strategy seemed to be successful. However, Santorum’s push for social conservatives in the past three days seems to have worked and they moved back to him, allowing him to re-take the lead. The volatility we thought had changed has not. The race remains very fluid,” Steve Mitchell, president of Mitchell Research & Communications, Inc. said.
The TPM Poll Average shows the race in Michigan going down to the wire.
