Romney vs. Santorum: Class warfare in the GOP
There are four candidates left standing in the GOP presidential nomination contest. But it鈥檚 really come down to a two-man race heading toward primary elections in Arizona and Michigan, then on to Super Tuesday with ten more contests and a lot more convention delegates than have been at stake so far.
For recently surging Rick Santorum and Republican establishment favorite Mitt Romney, the battle at this point couldn鈥檛 be closer or more important.
Michigan 鈥� Romney鈥檚 nominal home state (although he hasn鈥檛 lived there for years and was most notably governor of Massachusetts) could be make-or-break.
The headline this week in the Detroit Free Press had to be jolting for Romney: 鈥淣ew polls show Rick Santorum leading Mitt Romney in Michigan primary race.鈥�
鈥淎n MRG Michigan Poll, done with Lansing-based Inside Michigan Politics, showed Santorum up 43-33 percent on Romney, trailed by former House聽Speaker Newt Gingrich at 11 percent and US Rep. Ron Paul of Texas at 8 percent,鈥� the newspaper reported. 鈥淢itchell Research, a polling firm in East Lansing, released a survey showing Santorum ahead of Romney 34-25, with Paul at 11 percent and Gingrich at 5 percent.鈥澛�
搁贰颁翱惭惭贰狈顿贰顿:听Is Rick Santorum facing a brewing 'women problem'?
Meanwhile, the Real Clear Politics average of five polls has Santorum ahead of Romney in Michigan by 8 percentage points.
That has left some Republican Party insiders worrying about what to do if Romney loses the state where his father was a popular governor and top auto executive.
鈥淚f Romney cannot win Michigan, we need a new candidate,鈥� a Republican US senator, who has not endorsed any of the presidential candidates, told Jonathan Karl of ABC News.
鈥淲e鈥檇 get killed鈥� if Romney manages to win the nomination after he failed to win the state in which he grew up, the senator told Karl. 鈥淗e鈥檇 be too damaged.鈥�
Republicans like to charge President Obama with engaging in 鈥渃lass warfare.鈥� But among Republican primary voters and caucus participants, there鈥檚 evidence of a divide along economic class lines as well.
鈥淚n every contest held so far in which exit polling is available, Romney has done progressively worse as a voter鈥檚 income has dropped,鈥� points out Chris聽Cillizza in the Washington Post鈥檚 鈥淢orning Fix鈥� political column Saturday. 鈥�Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida, and Nevada all showed Romney performing between 8 and 20 percent worse among voters making less than $50,000, compared to those making more than $100,000. And the two states with the highest percentages of voters making less than $100,000 鈥� Iowa and South Carolina 鈥� happen to be the two states of those five that he has lost.鈥�
That helps explain why Santorum (eventually, once the votes were properly counted) won Iowa. And it鈥檚 part of his strategy going into Ohio as well.
A Quinnipiac University poll of likely Ohio Republican primary voters this past week has Santorum ahead of Romney 36-29 percent (with Gingrich at 20 percent and Paul at 9 percent). In terms of 鈥渇avorable鈥� ratings, Santorum and Romney are virtually even at about 60 percent, according to Quinnipiac. But Romney has a significantly higher 鈥渦nfavorable鈥� rating than Santorum (25-7 percent).
As a Pew Research Center survey of Republican and Republican-leaning registered voters this week shows, Santorum is benefitting from Gingrich鈥檚 flagging campaign 鈥� pulling ahead among anti-Romney conservatives.
鈥淩ick Santorum鈥檚 support among Tea Party Republicans and white evangelicals is surging, and he now has pulled into a virtual tie with Mitt Romney in the race for the Republican presidential nomination,鈥� Pew reported.
His family鈥檚 working class background helps him as well.
鈥淪antorum鈥檚 persona, his record, and his platform all have a populist tinge that plays well in states like Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, where swing voters tend to be socially conservative but economically middle-of-the-road,鈥� writes New York Times columnist Ross Douthat. 鈥淭his means that Santorum can play the same anti-Bain, anti-rich-guy, blue-collar card that Gingrich tried to play in New Hampshire and South Carolina 鈥� but subtly, implicitly, in ways that don鈥檛 make him sound like he belongs in Occupy Wall Street instead of the Republican primary.鈥�
Santorum was in Detroit this week before moving on to Ohio 鈥� 鈥済round zero鈥� in the campaign, he calls it 鈥� where he is spending Friday and Saturday. Real Clear Politics has him 7 percentage points ahead of Romney (33-26) in the Buckeye State.
Santorum released his tax returns this week, indicating that he鈥檚 become a near-millionaire since losing his US Senate seat. But he鈥檚 still a lot closer to the working-class end of the economic scale than Romney, and that could help him in Michigan and Ohio.
鈥淚f Santorum is ever to succeed at demonstrating that his mix of economic nationalism and cultural conservatism can galvanize the GOP's burgeoning working-class wing, he couldn't pick a better time than the next two weeks,鈥� writes Ronald Brownstein of the National Journal.
搁贰颁翱惭惭贰狈顿贰顿:听Is Rick Santorum facing a brewing 'women problem'?
