Support For Santorum Retreating, Having Gone from 3% to 34%

Attorney and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum is now suffering the fate of former college professor and Congressman Newt Gingrich -- rising to front-runner status among Republicans nationwide and then falling right back down again. Santorum led dual-Harvard degree holder Mitt Romney by 10 percentage points as recently as our Feb. 21 report, but has now fallen behind by eight points as of our Feb. 29 report. This is Santorum's first brush with the ups and down of success in this regard; Gingrich has experienced the roller coaster effect twice since we began tracking on Dec. 1.

Santorum now has the record for the largest range of support since we began tracking -- going from 2% of the vote back in early December to 36% of the vote for three days running back in mid-February after his "three victory" day -- Minnesota, Missouri, and Colorado -- on Feb. 7. Santorum, as of our Feb. 29 report, is now at 25% support and falling.

Gingrich's range has been 24 points, from his low of 13% support in mid-January to his high of 37% in early December. Gingrich's support went from 37% when we began tracking on Dec. 1, to 13%, back to 32%, and is now at 16%. Gingrich's support levels have been the most labile of any we have monitored. His campaign team is hoping, of course, that this lability at the national level becomes evident again after next week's Super Tuesday primaries, one of which will be held in his home state of Georgia.

Romney has operated in a more narrow range, from a low of 21% support just before Christmas to a high of 37% in early February. He is at 33% as of the Feb. 29 report. His roller coaster ride, in other words, has been less exciting than Gingrich's. In this latest iteration of the "falling from grace" scenario, Romney was down only to a low of 26% as Santorum surged and, as noted, is now back on on top once again.

Doctor and Congressman Ron Paul has been steady as she goes, with support ranging only between 8% and 14% since Dec. 1. He is now at 11%.

I'm writing this on the day after Romney won the primaries in Arizona and Michigan. If past history is a predictor of future behavior, we will see Romney's lead get larger in the days ahead -- leading into next week's Super Tuesday voting.

Of note is the fact that GOP voters in Michigan and Arizona were more likely to chose electability ("can defeat Obama") as the most important candidate characteristic they took into account in voting than they were any of the other three characteristics listed for them by exit pollsters -- the others being right experience, strong moral character, or true conservative. The good news for Romney was that he won among these "defeat Obama" voters.

Santorum won among the "strong moral character" and "true conservative" voters in both states. A combined total of 40% of Michigan Republican primary voters said that strong moral character and true conservative were the most important candidate characteristic to them. Among Arizona Republicans, the similar percentage was 32%. Romney won by 3 points in Arizona, and by 20 points in Michigan.

I think that "electability" is another way of saying "the economy," since every survey I am aware of shows that in the general election, at least as of now, the economy will be the top issue. Thus, if Republicans want a candidate who is the most electable (i.e., the best chance of beating Obama), they need a candidate who has the strongest positioning on the economy.

Santorum's people know all of this, of course. It was notable that in his concession speech Tuesday night (in which he didn't really concede to Romney), Santorum talked about the economy and not moral and values issues. I'm sure that he and his campaign team are not happy that moral and social values issues have dominated news coverage of the candidate in the last several weeks, after his win in three states on Feb. 7. However, as Susan Page of USA Today said in our Election Matters show this week, Santorum gets dogged with this moral values news coverage in part because he says such quote-worthy things when asked these types of questions.

At any rate, our data show that Republicans, independents, and Democrats alike prefer a candidate in whom they have confidence on the economy to one with whom they agree on moral and values issues. Moral issues are also dead last when we asked voters to rate the importance of nine different issues to their presidential vote this year.

So much of this election depends on the economy. You may have seen the Conference Board reportshowing that their consumer confidence measure improved in February. That was of course old news to those following our Gallup Economic Confidence Index. Since the Conference Board cut-off for their measure is Feb. 15, their report missed a modest leveling off in confidence that we have been tracking in the latter part of the month. We'll see where that goes, but in general ,every uptick in economic confidence is good news for Obama's re-election chances.