Mitt Romney won the Illinois Republican primary last night and before that he took Puerto Rico, but despite recent wins, the latest polling by Public Policy Polling (PPP) shows Romney cannot seem to close the deal nor unite the Republican party supporters across the board.
PPP finds that nationally Romney only holds a "small" three point lead over Santorum with a 34 percent to 31 percent margin. Newt Gingrich comes in at 20 percent and Ron Paul at 9 percent.
The margin of error for the PPP survey is +/-3.6%.
Full results of the PPP poll HERE.
Next up is Louisiana on March 24, 2012, where Mitt Romney is not even campaigning, his history in Southern states previously showing he cannot seem to get traction in the South.
According to Real Clear Politics Louisiana polling averages, Rick Santorum holding his lead against Romney by 13 points from Magellan Strategies (R) which was the most recent polling data listed.
(Full Republican primary/caucus schedule found HERE)
[Update] As a side note the PPP survey also points out what they call an "interesting finding":
The talk of a brokered convention never seems to die down and one interesting finding on this poll was that Sarah Palin is far more popular than any of the actual Republican candidates in the race. Her net favorability is +48, with 68% of voters rating her favorably to only 20% with a negative opinion. That compares favorably to +29 for Santorum, +19 for Romney, and -26 for Paul.
Palin is someone GOP delegates might be able to unify around in the case of a hopelessly deadlocked convention. She is seen positively by Gingrich voters (85/7), Santorum supporters (80/10), and Romney ones (57/27) alike. That's a contrast to Romney who is disliked by both Santorum (38/48) and Gingrich (32/54) voters and Santorum who is disliked by Romney (38/48) voters and only seen narrowly favorably by Gingrich (46/42) backers.
Heads are expected to explode in 5.....4.....3.....2......1.....
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