While everyone is focused on next week’s Arizona and Michigan primaries, and Super Tuesday, there’s still an important caucus state in between those two dates. Washington is holding their Republican caucuses on March 3rd (a Saturday) and Rick Santorum is beating Romney by double digits. According to the latest PPP poll (and the only poll I’ve seen from Washington), Rick Santorum leads with 38% of the vote, while Mitt Romney only gets 27%. Ron Paul is third at 15% and Newt Gingrich is fourth with 12%. Ron Paul always seems to over perform in caucus states, so this could get interesting.
The groups fueling Santorum’s lead in Washington are the same ones he’s doing well with everywhere: he’s up 50-20 with Tea Partiers, 50-18 with Evangelicals, and 50-19 with voters describing themselves as ‘very conservative.’ His state by state formula for success definitely seems to include leading with each of those groups by at least 25 points.