There's a new poll out of Michigan Republicans and, like New Hampshire and Iowa, it has Romney out to a big lead among GOP primary voters. From the Free Press [2]:
WASHINGTON -- Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has surged to become the clear GOP front-runner in Michigan, his native state, a new poll shows.
"He's the it candidate for right now," said Dick Bennett, president of Manchester, N.H.-based American Research Group, which conducted the poll of 500 Republicans and 100 independent voters who said they were likely to vote in Michigan's Jan. 15 GOP primary.
Romney had the support of 39% of those surveyed, compared with 13% for former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, 12% for former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee and 9% for Sen. John McCain of Arizona. The poll was taken Saturday through Tuesday and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Long story short, it doesn't seem to be hurting Romney's chances that Michigan has decided to move its primary up to mid January. If his lead in these three early states holds [3], he would be three for three going into SC on January 19th, (or four for four, if you count his lead in Nevada, which will be holding an early January caucus).
While he's been much lower in SC than these other states, he has been moving up, surely, albeit slowly. But considering his campaign just began a major media buy in the Palmetto State, you've got to figure he'll be better positioned there in a few months, and ready to take advantage of any "bounce" that comes from doing so well in these other early states.
(full disclosure, I'm on the Romney wagon)
