656 Usual Republican Primary Voters Don't Like Romney Very Much, According to Public Policy Polling
It's not clear to me why they do this: 656 strikes me as a sample size too small by a factor of 3 if you want your cross-tabs to be reliable. But they do it:
Santorum surges into the lead - 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 [of usual Republican primary voters]. 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 [usual Republican primary] 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).
Santorum is now completely dominating with several key segments of the electorate, especially the most right leaning parts of the party. With those describing themselves as 'very conservative,' he's now winning a majority of voters at 53% to 20% for Gingrich and 15% for Romney. Santorum gets a majority with Tea Party voters as well at 51% to 24% for Gingrich and 12% for Romney. And with Evangelicals he falls just short of a majority with 45% to 21% for Gingrich and 18% for Romney…
When a poll with a small sample size produces large outlier results for cross-tabs, the reason it looks surprising--and is news--is that it is quite likely wrong. Seems to me that the media are giving PPP the wrong incentives here.
But it seems to me that we are about to see Romney open up with his opposition research on Big Government Santorum...
