Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney’s long-standing problem attracting and maintaining the support of conservative voters is coming to a head in Michigan, a state Romney was poised to win easily but which he is now in jeopardy of losing to Rick Santorum.
Michigan is Romney’s native state, and his father, George, was once its governor. In 2008, Romney won the state’s Republican primary. Still, the former governor of Massachusetts is now hemorrhaging support in the Wolverine State.
Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania whom many Republicans view as a more conservative candidate than Romney, cruised into Michigan with an 9 percentage point lead, according to a RealClearPolitics poll average.
Despite lacking any real campaign organization in the state and suffering from a considerable financial disadvantage, Santorum has managed to steal the conservative vote away from Romney almost overnight.
Just two weeks ago, Romney had a nearly 2-to-1 lead over Santorum in Michigan. But Santorum gained momentum with victories in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado and is now leading a race that, despite having four contenders, has been reduced to a two-man contest between Romney and Santorum.
“It’s a shocker,” Bill Ballenger, a longtime Michigan political pundit and editor of the newsletter Inside Michigan Politics, told The Washington Examiner.
“If you are a Tea Party conservative activist and you are uneasy about Mitt Romney and you don’t like his flip-flops and he looks like he’s too moderate, you are looking at anybody but Romney,” Ballenger said. “The only thing Santorum represents is he’s not Romney.”
Indeed, Santorum swept Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri by running as the conservative alternative to Romney, with the victories allowing him to pull ahead of other anti-Romney contenders, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas. But Santorum’s streak was slowed over the weekend when Romney won the weekend straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference as well as the Maine caucuses.
Defeating Romney in a state where he grew up and where Romney was expected to easily win would provide Santorum with an incredible boost heading into the March 6 Super Tuesday contests.
“Romney thought he could win Michigan without breaking a sweat and now he finds himself in the fight of his life,” Ballenger said. “It’s really going to devastate him if he loses here.”
Greg McNeilly, a Michigan-based Republican strategist, expects Romney to ramp up attack advertising against Santorum, in the same tactic he successfully used to defeat Gingrich in the Florida primary last month.
Michigan politicians dispatched to speak to the media on Romney’s behalf this week noted Santorum’s lack of executive experience and claimed he “voted for budget-busting entitlement programs” while serving in the House and Senate.
Santorum this week warned supporters in a fundraising memo that Romney “is getting ready to carpet-bomb the state with dishonest ads.”
Santorum responded with an attack ad of his own, a new spot showing an actor dressed as Romney shooting mud from a paint ball gun at a cutout of Santorum.
Still, McNeilly said running attack ads won’t hurt Romney in Michigan.
“We like people who are aggressive and who are willing to throw and take some punches,” he said. “The reality is, it’s an effective tool and it’s riskier for them not to use it. A loss in Michigan is pretty damaging.”
