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Health & Fitness

Santorum: From Nowhere To Leading in Michigan

You can see how surprising the Santorum surge is just by looking at the primary ballot in Maryland. Plus some new polling in Michigan has Santorum surging into the lead over Romney.

At this weekend's fundraiser for the Howard County Republican Party, I think I heard the name "Rick Santorum" in the span of two hours more than I have heard his name in the past six months combined at similar Republican events. 

Clearly his wins last Tuesday and his rise in polls across the country are fueling much of this.  As far as I could tell, only Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Ron Paul have had a campaign structure of any type in Maryland while Santorum has never really set up a campaign in Maryland.  I am not saying there is not a "Maryland for Santorum" campaign out there somewhere, but I have not found it and if it does exist, they have not made much of an effort to be found.

You can see how little organization there was from the Santorum campaign when it comes to the primary ballot in Maryland for the candidates for Delegate to the Republican National Convention. 

Find out what's happening in Columbiawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

This could actually matter should there be a brokered convention (if no candidate receives a majority of pledged delegates in the primary process) and the delegates are then free to cast their ballots at the convention. 

In Maryland, candidates for delegate can be affiliated with a campaign and these affiliations are usually given by the respective campaigns at the filing deadline (January 6th).  I am only speaking from memory now, but I believe the delegates affiliated with the Presidential candidate that wins in Maryland are usually the ones who end up winning their respective delegate races as well.

Find out what's happening in Columbiawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

In each congressional district, a Presidential campaign can affiliate its candidate with up to three of the candidates running.  In the three districts in Howard County, Romney, Gingrich and Paul all had three names on the ballot for delegate in each district while Santorum's campaign has only two names for Districts 2 and 3 while having no one affiliated with it in District 7. 

In other words, at least five of the nine delegates elected for the Republican National Convention from these three districts will be ones who may not support Santorum at the convention should no candidate actually reach a majority of delegates nationwide.  At the Alternate Delegate level, once again Romney and Paul filled all of their slots, and Gingrich filled eight of the nine, but Santorum's campaign has only three of the nine slots filled (one in District 2 and two in District 7).

It might seem minor in the grand scheme of things, but it does illustrate how upstart the Santorum campaign really is and how little organization they had even as little as a month ago. 

You probably also have some candidates for delegate affiliated with some campaigns that have already ended (Rick Perry) that are wishing they could have associated themselves with Rick Santorum instead at this point.  They may have lost their chance to go to the convention simply by choosing Perry instead of Santorum, where clearly there were openings to be had.

With that preamble out of the way and the next primary a little more than two weeks away, we have two new polls that show Republican primary voters in Michigan are also giving Rick Santorum another look. 

Both American Research Group and Public Policy Polling have polls out this morning showing Rick Santorum moving ahead of Mitt Romney.

PRESIDENT - MICHIGAN - GOP PRIMARY (PPP)
Rick Santorum 39%
Mitt Romney 24%
Ron Paul 12%
Newt Gingrich 11%

PRESIDENT - MICHIGAN - GOP PRIMARY (ARG)
Rick Santorum 33%
Mitt Romney 27%
Newt Gingrich 21%
Ron Paul 12%

Romney and Paul seemed relatively static between the two polls, but PPP seems to suggest a lot more of the anti-Romney vote in Santorum's camp than the ARG poll shows.  

This primary is being held on February 28th, the same day Arizona will be holding its primary. 

In Michigan, other polling organizations that we tend to see are EPIC-MRA, Selzer and Company, and Mitchell Research, all of which I expect to see a poll from before February 28th. 

In Arizona, I expect to get polls from American Research Group and Public Policy Polling, but we also tend to see polls from Behavior Research Center.  Of course, with the heightened interest now, I also expect the major network and cable news companies to potential commission their own polls as well.

THe ARG poll was done February 11-12 among 600 likely primary voters with a margin of error of +/- 4%.

The PPP poll was done February 10-12 among 404 likely primary voters with a margin of error of +/- 4.9%.

The candidate listings can be found at the Maryland Board of Elections website here.

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