In calling on “Newt Gingrich to unite conservatives” and exit the contest for the Republican presidential nomination, Stuart Roy, an adviser to “Red White and Blue fund, the super PAC backing” Rick Santorum, echoes the conventional wisdom that all of the former Speaker’s supporter would shift to the former Pennsylvania Senator should the social conservative duke it out mano a mano with the former Massachusetts governor.
Surveys, however, have not backed up this notion as per this recent Rasmussen survey:
While some have suggested that if Gingrich gets out of the race Santorum will move into the lead, the numbers still don’t bear that out. In a one-on-one matchup. Romney leads Santorum 50% to 39%, virtually identical to last week’s findings. Two weeks earlier, Santorum led Romney 55% to 34%, the only time any challenger has led Romney nationally in a head-to-head matchup.
Ed Morrissey alerts us to another recent Rasmussen survey which contests another piece of conventional wisdom that the president is on track to reelection:
Rasmussen’s daily tracking poll has good news for Republicans, and two of the Republican candidates. The ongoing daily survey of 500 likely voters shows Barack Obama’s job approval at 44/54, the lowest since the end of December in this series, and both Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum have leads in head-to-head matchups . . .
Santorum up by one over Obama? That must be causing some hand-wringing in the Obama campaign.
Santorum had no chance in Guam and the Northern Marianas.
Rasmussen is a damn good polling firm.
That’s what makes the Obama weakness against Santorum so notable.
Lot of Democrats kidding themselves on a November cakewalk.