With one week to go before Michigan and Arizona hold their Republican primary elections, polls are showing considerable tightening between former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum in both states. Today, both races are near tossups.
Over the weekend, three polls emerged out of Michigan that showed Santorum’s lead evaporating to a statistical non-issue; one poll even shows Mitt Romney regaining his lead in the Great Lakes State.
Public Policy Polling released a survey on Monday which showed Romney trailing Santorum by just 4 points – 37 percent to 33 percent support with Ron Paul at 15 percent and Newt Gingrich in last place with 10 percent. That’s a dramatic turnaround from PPP’s poll from February 10 – 12 which showed Romney trailing Santorum by 15 points.
A WeAskAmerica poll that was in the field on the 19th showed Romney and Santorum tied at 29 percent each and a local Mitchell Research / Rosetta Stone poll released on Monday showed Romney regaining his lead over Santorum by a statistically meaningless 2 points at 32 percent to Santorum’s 30 percent.
The race in Michigan is now a dead heat.
In Arizona, PPP and WeAskAmerica were in the field over the weekend and showed fairly divergent results. A Rasmussen Reports poll from last week showed dramatic tightening; in Rasmussen’s poll from last week, Romney lead Santorum by 8 points, a 16 point decline from his 24 point lead on their February 1 poll.
PPP’s Arizona poll shows the Grand Canyon race is a tossup. In that survey, Romney leads Santorum by 3 points at 36 to 33 percent. The spread is far larger in the WeAskAmerica poll which showed Romney comfortably ahead with 37 to 27 percent.
One of these polls is off base, but it there has been a dearth of polling in Arizona and there is not quite enough data in that race to tell which polling organization is more on point.
Both races are up for grabs – without question, the winner of one or both primaries on February 28 will have momentum heading into the following week’s Super Tuesday contests. Tomorrow night, the candidate’s will engage each other in the penultimate debate of the primary season. Given how much bearing the debates have had on the race thus far, it is likely that this last one will be determinative as to who walks away with victory and momentum next week.
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