Story Excerpt:
(Fox News) Rick Santorum has surged nationally in the race for the 2012 Republican nomination after his three-state sweep this week, while Mitt Romney has lost ground among GOP primary voters. In addition, most GOP voters say the nomination race isn’t over — someone other than Romney could still win. That’s according to a Fox News poll released Friday.
The new poll was conducted over four nights this week — Monday through Thursday — so it provides a unique opportunity to compare Santorum’s support before and after his wins in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri. And the results are striking.
In interviews conducted on Monday and Tuesday nights — immediately before the news of his victories — Santorum received the backing of 17 percent of GOP primary voters. That was well behind Romney (35 percent) and Newt Gingrich (26 percent), and slightly ahead of Ron Paul (14 percent).
In interviews conducted on Wednesday and Thursday nights — after his wins — Santorum’s support nearly doubled, which put him tied at the top with Romney for those two days at 30 percent. That’s an increase of 13 percentage points. Over the last two nights, Romney also received 30 percent, a drop of 5 points. Gingrich came in at 16 percent, down 10 points. Paul’s support held steady at 15 percent.
Looking at the results from all four nights of this week’s interviewing, Romney retains his frontrunner spot with 33 percent, followed by Santorum at 23 percent, Gingrich at 22 percent and Paul at 15 percent.
The previous Fox News poll was conducted in mid-January, and since then Rick Perry and Jon Huntsman dropped out of the race. Romney’s support is down 7 percentage points since the January poll, while Santorum is up 8 points, Gingrich is up 8 points and Paul is up 2 points.
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