Rick Santorum: GOP Underdog Frontrunner

The good news for Rick Santorum is that the latest poll numbers from Gallup have him leading Mitt Romney by 10 points; the bad news is that respondents also think Romney, not Santorum, is the GOP's best shot at beating Barack Obama.

The good news for Rick Santorum is that the latest poll numbers from Gallup have him leading Mitt Romney by 10 points; the bad news is that respondents also think Romney, not Santorum, is the GOP's best shot at beating Barack Obama.

According to February 15-19 polling data from Gallup, Santorum is polling ahead of Romney 36 percent to 26 percent among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. Newt Gingrich has 13 percent support while Ron Paul has 11 percent. This is Santorum's first lead against Romney in a Gallup poll, and with a 10-point margin it's a quite large one at that. The meager 2- and 3-point leads from CNN and CBS News/The New York Times earlier in February are now being replaced by double-digit ones like today's from Gallup.

But despite that good news for Santorum, he didn't do so well on the also-important question of "Which Republican candidate do you think has the better chance of beating Barack Obama in November?" 54 percent of Americans asked in a separate Gallup poll said named Romney is more electable one-on-one against Obama, while only 32 percent said the same of Santorum.  Per Gallup, "Overall, almost 3 in 10 Republicans in the USA Today/Gallup survey who believe that Romney has the best chance of beating Obama still say they would vote for Santorum over Romney."