Santorum Pulls Ahead of Romney in Ohio Poll

UPDATE: More polling data, more good news for Rick Santorum, this time in Ohio.

A Quinnipiac University poll out Wednesday has the new GOP front-runner leading rival Mitt Romney in the Buckeye State by 7 points, 36 percent to 29 pecent. Newt Gingrich is polling in third place with 20 percent, while Ron Paul sits in fourth at 9 percent.

The Ohio primary—along with the rest of the Super Tuesday nominating contests—is still three weeks away, however, so there's still plenty of time for movement.

As troubling as Santorum's surge may be for the GOP establishment, the new poll suggests even worse news for Republicans. The survey found that all of the candidates would lose in a head-to-head matchup with President Obama: Obama leads Romney by 2 points (46-44), Santorum by 6 points (47-41) and Gingrich by 12 points (50-38).

The matchup results suggest that, despite Santorum's lead among Republican primary voters in the polls, Romney might still lay claim to the "most electable" title. How much that actually matters to primary voters this election, however, remains up in the air.

Tuesday, Feb. 14: According to a new poll out Tuesday, conservative Evangelical and Tea Party voters have finally found their GOP candidate. Spoiler alert: It's not Mitt Romney. 

The New York Times/CBS News national survey shows Rick Santorum leading Romney by 3 points, 30 percent to 27, among likely GOP primary voters. The gap is within the poll's margin of error but nonetheless illustrates Santorum's recent surge in the wake of his surprising sweep of last Tuesday's Republican nominating contests. As the Times notes, Tuesday's poll numbers are backed up by the results of two other polls from Pew and Gallup, released Monday, showing a similar Santorum surge.

Perhaps more importantly for Santorum, his boost in the polls comes largely from a shoring up of support from the most conservative wing of the party, which has largely been divided this primary season. In last month's Times/CBS poll, Santorum claimed 24 percent of self-identified conservatives; this time that number ballooned to 38 percent. The former Pennsylvania senator found similar success among Evangelicals, with the number backing him climbing from 23 percent last month to 39 percent in the latest poll.

(Meanwhile, the new poll numbers suggest that Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich are falling behind nationally, at 12 percent and 10 percent respectively.)

With the exception of Romney, who has remained relatively steady in both overall and conservative support between January and now, the survey reflects the instability of the 2012 GOP primary season, and that doesn't look ready to stop soon: 60 percent of voters said they were still open to changing their minds about which candidate to support. 

The full results of the Times/CBS poll will be released Tuesday evening.