Make no mistake about it. If former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney loses the Michigan Republican Presidential primary he is in big trouble. It’ll be a body blow to his imagery, will likely mean an even greater infusion of money into the candidacy of his chief rival former Sen. Rick Santorum. And no matter how many times he says the word “conservative” or says he was “severely conservative” as Governor, the party’s conservative base and Tea Partiers will continue their steady march to Santorum as the Anti-Romney.
This new poll suggesting Romney could lose in Michigan suggests he could seriously lose control of his planned narrative of himself as the front-runner, inevitable nominee and conservative:
Rick Santorum’s taken a large lead in Michigan’s upcoming Republican primary. He’s at 39% to 24% for Mitt Romney, 12% for Ron Paul, and 11% for Newt Gingrich.
Santorum’s rise is attributable to two major factors: his own personal popularity (a stellar 67/23 favorability) and GOP voters increasingly souring on Gingrich. Santorum’s becoming something closer and closer to a consensus conservative candidate as Gingrich bleeds support.
Santorum’s winning an outright majority of the Tea Party vote with 53% to 22% for Romney and 10% for Gingrich. He comes close to one with Evangelicals as well at 48% to 20% for Romney and 12% for Gingrich. And he cracks the 50% line with voters identifying as ‘very conservative’ at 51% to 20% for Romney and 10% for Gingrich.
But it will be seen — bottom line — as yet another rejection of Romney a)as nominee and b)as someone conservative enough to be nominee.
Santorum’s benefiting from the open nature of Michigan’s primary as well. He’s only up by 12 points with actual Republican voters, but he has a 40-21 advantage with the Democrats and independents planning to vote that pushes his overall lead up to 15 points. Santorum is winning by a healthy margin in every region of the state except for Oakland County, where Romney has a 40-26 advantage, and the area around Lansing where Paul actually has an advantage at 30% to 27% for both Romney and Santorum.
Republican voters aren’t just declining to vote for Gingrich at this point- they don’t even like him anymore. Just 38% have a favorable opinion of him to 47% with a negative one. His numbers are inching back closer to what they were before his surge in the polls began in November. His continued presence in the race is a boost to Romney though. 54% of his supporters would go to Santorum if he dropped out, compared to only 21% for Romney and 14% for Paul. Santorum’s lead in a Newt-less field would expand to 21 points with him at 48% to 27% for Romney and 13% for Paul. So every day Gingrich stays in is a saving grace for Romney’s hopes.
Romney will have to pull out all stops to ensure he wins in Michigan (where his father was Governor and it’s like his second home state). If he doesn’t, no matter how he or his surrogates spin it, it’ll make the GOP Presidential race go on a lot longer and embolden those who want to see anybody but Romney at the head of the ticket.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.