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.
