Poll: Santorum Surge Due to Churchgoers, Midwesterners, Conservatives
A new Gallup poll shows that presidential candidate Rick Santorum's recent rise in the polls has come mostly from those who attend religious services weekly, those who live in the Midwest and conservatives.
Santorum has a 22 percentage point advantage (44 to 22 percent) among those who attend worship weekly, a 19 percentage point advantage (40 to 21 percent) among those who live in the Midwest, and an 18 percentage point advantage (42 to 24 percent) among conservatives over main rival Mitt Romney.
The former Pennsylvania also does well among Southerners (33 to 25 percent), those who make less than $90,000 (37 to 25 percent), those without a college degree (37 to 23 percent), and those aged 55 and older (39 to 26 percent).
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Santorum is tied with Romney among those who live in the East (33 to 33 percent) and West (35 to 34 percent), and those who attend religious services nearly weekly (31 to 31 percent).
Romney does well among those who seldom or never attend religious services (33 to 25 percent) and those who describe themselves as moderate or liberal (36 to 18 percent).
Santorum hails from a Midwestern state, Pennsylvania, where he served as a U.S. congressman and senator. He is also well known for his strong Catholic convictions and fighting for social conservative causes.
His economic policy has a focus on helping blue-collar workers, which is unique in the Republican field. This may help explain his advantage among those without a college degree and those with less income.
Romney lives in the Northeast and was formerly governor of Massachusetts. He also belongs to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which has a large number of adherents in some Western states, especially Utah.
Romney was born in Michigan where his father, George Romney, served as governor. He is currently in a tight race there with Santorum ahead of next Tuesday's primary. The current Real Clear Politics average of five separate polls shows the race tied with each candidate getting about one-third of the vote.
The Feb. 13-19 poll of 1,641 Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who are registered to vote has a plus or minus three percentage point margin of error.
