News Headlines
WASHINGTON (AP) — A surging Rick Santorum is running even with Mitt Romney atop the Republican presidential field, but neither candidate is faring well against President Barack Obama eight months before Americans vote, a new survey shows.
Obama tops 50 percent support when matched against each of the four Republican candidates and holds a significant lead over each of them, according to the Associated Press-GfK poll.
Republicans, meanwhile, are divided on whether they’d rather see former Massachusetts Gov. Romney or former Pennsylvania Sen. Santorum capture the nomination. Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, and Texas Rep. Ron Paul are lagging behind. It’s a troubling sign for the better-funded Romney as the Republican race heads toward crucial votes on Feb. 28 in his home state of Michigan and Arizona, and on Super Tuesday, March 6, in 10 states.
The tightening of the Republican race has raised the stakes for Wednesday night’s debate in Mesa, Arizona. It’s the 20th debate of the race and previous encounters have had an impact far beyond the state where they were held. Romney righted his campaign a month ago when he excelled in a pair of Florida debates after losing the South Carolina primary to Gingrich.
Polls have long shown Romney with a solid lead in Arizona, where all of the 29 delegates at stake are reserved for the top vote-getter in the primary. As a result, none of the candidates has devoted much time or money to the state.
In Michigan, by contrast, Romney’s lead in public and private surveys began eroding earlier this month when Santorum won upset victories in caucuses in Minnesota and Colorado and a non-binding primary in Missouri on a single night. Now the one-time front-runner campaigns as though he is behind. Not surprisingly, Romney, Santorum and their allies have poured money into television ads in Michigan — about $5 million combined, with additions made Tuesday for the race’s final week.
The AP-GfK poll showed that nationally Republicans are evenly split between Romney and Santorum. The poll found 33 percent would most like to see Santorum get the nomination, while 32 percent prefer Romney. Gingrich and Paul each had 15 percent support.
Romney’s fall from presumed front-runner to struggling establishment favorite has given his opponents an opening as he tries to expand his support. His Republican rivals have stepped in claiming to be a more consistent conservative and viable opponent against Obama, and each of the last three AP-GfK polls has found a different contender battling Romney for the top spot. But Santorum, a staunch social conservative, has hit his stride at a key moment in the nomination contest.
“I’d pick Santorum, because it seems Romney may be waffling on a few issues and I’m not sure I trust him,” said Thomas Stehlin, 66, of St. Clair Shores, Michigan. He thinks the Detroit-born son of a Michigan governor is facing a strong challenge from Santorum in his home state because of his tangled answers on the auto industry bailout.
Santorum’s spike comes as satisfaction with the field of candidates remains tepid and interest in the contest is cool. About 6 in 10 Republicans in the poll say they are satisfied with the people running for the nomination, stagnant since December and below the 66 percent that felt that way in October. Only 23 percent are strongly satisfied with the field.
Santorum’s recent victories despite Romney’s huge advantage in money and organizational strength have stunned the Republican establishment that Romney has methodically courted since his first bid for the Republican nomination in 2008.
There’s evidence that Santorum’s comments about social issues may not have hurt him so far among women.
Santorum has been unapologetic in his opposition to abortion and his concerns about working moms, women in combat and contraception — some of the many examples he cites while making the case that he would draw a clearer contrast than Romney against Obama.
For all that, there’s little evident gender gap between Romney and Santorum, the AP-GfK poll showed. Santorum, who made some of the comments while the poll was being conducted Feb. 16-20, runs even with Romney among both Republican men and women.
The enduring split between Romney and whichever Republican opponent is up at any moment reflects a familiar dispute in the broader party ranks over whether to focus on social issues or financial matters in presidential races.
Among conservative Republicans, Santorum holds a decisive edge, with 41 percent preferring him and 27 percent supporting Romney. Santorum enjoys similar advantages among supporters of the small government, anti-tax tea party movement and evangelical voters. But ask moderate and liberal Republicans the same question and the results flip: Forty percent favor Romney while 20 percent prefer Santorum.
Romney campaigned in Michigan on Tuesday, and was pulled into a discussion of social issues by questioners at a town-hall style rally in Shelby Township.
Asked how he would defend religious liberty, he said the Obama administration has “fought against religion” and sought to substitute a secular agenda for one grounded in faith.
“Unfortunately, possibly because of the people the president hangs around with, and their agenda, their secular agenda — they have fought against religion,” he said.
Obama’s campaign seized on the characterization, calling Romney’s comments disgraceful and likening them to recent comments by Santorum. The former Pennsylvania senator said recently the president holds a “phony theology,” then insisted he wasn’t attacking the president’s faith, but his environmental views.
Republicans have accused Obama of violating religious liberties when the administration recently announced that except for churches, most employers would be required to make birth control available as an insurance benefit as part of the health care overhaul Congress passed in 2010. The White House backtracked, but not enough to satisfy conservatives.
The Republican pivot toward social issues comes as the U.S. economy is showing signs of catching fire after languishing through two years of near-stagnation in the aftermath of the 2007-2009 Great Recession.Obama was seen as most vulnerable on the economy, but the recent declines in the U.S. unemployment rate and upticks in manufacturing and construction have begun to close that line of attack against the incumbent president.
That was reflected in the AP-GfK poll which showed Obama holding an 8-percentage point lead over Romney, 9 points over Santorum and 10 points over Gingrich or Paul.
Notably, the survey showed the president dominating among independents, a group central to Obama’s 2008 victory, whose support for him had faltered in recent months. According to the poll, 6 in 10 independents would choose Obama over any of the Republicans.
There was good news for Republicans, too: Any of the four Republican candidates would likely top Obama among those age 65 and over, as well as among whites without college degrees.
The Associated Press-GfK Poll was conducted Feb. 16-20 by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Corporate Communications. It involved telephone interviews with 1,000 adults nationwide and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.
___
Associated Press writers Laurie Kellman, Jennifer Agiesta, Dennis Junius and Stacy Anderson in Washington and David Espo in Mesa, Arizona, contributed to this report.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In