New National Poll Shows Rick Santorum Surging to a 15 Point Lead over Mitt Romney – 2/11/12

A new Public Policy Polling (PPP) national poll shows Rick Santorum surging out to a 15-point lead over Mitt Romney in the wake of his three-state sweep earlier this week. Santorum now leads Romney 38%-23%, with Newt Gingrich far back at 17%, and Ron Paul at 13%.

PUBLIC POLICY POLLING: Riding a wave of momentum from his trio of victories on Tuesday Rick Santorum has opened up a wide lead in PPP’s newest national poll. He’s at 38% to 23% for Mitt Romney, 17% for Newt Gingrich, and 13% for Ron Paul.

Part of the reason for Santorum’s surge is his own high level of popularity. 64% of voters see him favorably to only 22% with a negative one. But the other, and maybe more important, reason is that Republicans are significantly souring on both Romney and Gingrich. Romney’s favorability is barely above water at 44/43, representing a 23 point net decline from our December national poll when he was +24 (55/31). Gingrich has fallen even further. A 44% plurality of GOP voters now hold a negative opinion of him to only 42% with a positive one. That’s a 34 point drop from 2 months ago when he was at +32 (60/28). . . . Read More

Actually, the news gets even better for Santorum as you see in the tweets below: