Rick Santorum is surging again, this time in Mitt Romney’s home state of Michigan.

According to a Public Policy Polling survey, the former Pennsylvania senator has taken a large lead with 39% compared to 24% for Mitt Romney, 12% for Ron Paul, and 11% for Newt Gingrich.

Santorum’s rise as the state’s Feb. 28 primary approaches, PPP reports, is attributable to two major factors: his own personal popularity (a stellar 67% to 23% favorability) and GOP voters increasingly souring on Gingrich.

One caution: this poll apparently places significant credence in those independents and Democrats who say they will vote in the primary.
Santorum is up by 12 points with Republican voters, but he has a 40-21 advantage with the Democrats and independents planning to vote. That pushes his overall lead up to 15 points. 

Santorum is winning by a healthy margin in every region of the state in the PPP poll except for Oakland County, where Romney has a 40-26 advantage, and the area around Lansing where Paul actually has an advantage at 30-27 over both Romney and Santorum. 

Another fascinating aspect of the PPP poll is that the perception that Michigan is a state where Romney has a home field advantage is wrong.
Only 26% of primary voters actually consider him to be a Michigander, while 62% do not. Only 39% have a favorable opinion of his father, former Michigan governor George Romney, while a 46% plurality having no opinion about him.
In fact, Mitt Romney doesn’t have a reservoir of goodwill in Michigan to fall back on. Only 49% of voters have a favorable opinion of him to 39% with a negative one. That’s down a net 28 points from PPP’s last Michigan poll in July when he was at plus-38 (61/23). 

Meanwhile, Santorum’s becoming something closer and closer to a consensus conservative candidate as Gingrich bleeds support, according to PPP.
Santorum’s winning an outright majority of the tea party vote with 53% to 22% for Romney and 10% for Gingrich. He comes close to one with Evangelicals as well at 48% to 20% for Romney and 12% for Gingrich. And he cracks the 50% line with voters identifying as “very conservative” at 51% — compared to 20% for Romney and 10% for Gingrich.

Republican voters aren’t just declining to vote for Gingrich at this point — they clearly don’t like him anymore. Just 38% have a favorable opinion of him; 47% view the former House speaker negatively. His numbers are inching backward, closer to what they were before his surge in the national polls began in late November. 
His continued presence in the race is a boost to Romney though. Some 54% of his supporters would go to Santorum if Gingrich dropped out, compared to only 21% for Romney and 14% for Paul. 

PPP found that Santorum’s lead in a Newt-less field would expand to 21 points with him at 48% to 27% for Romney and 13% for Paul. So every day Gingrich stays in is a saving grace for Romney’s hopes.

For all that, Santorum probably shouldn’t get too comfortable.

There is a lot of potential for fluidity in the Michigan race, with only 47% of voters saying they’re strongly committed to their candidate, while 53% are open to changing their minds in the next two weeks.
Romney’s support is more firm, with 52% of his voters saying they’ll definitely end up supporting him compared to 46% who say that about Santorum.

The situation, according to PPP, is reminiscent of what happened in Florida right after Gingrich’s big win in South Carolina- he took the lead then quickly lost it in a big way after coming under attack by Romney.
Given how open voters are to changing their minds a repeat of that in Michigan would not be a huge surprise.

You can review all the poll results here.

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