Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum‘s presidential campaign is seeing a significant resurgence in the polls for the first time since his Iowa caucus win in early January.
Seeking a late rise in the race for the Republican nomination, Santorum has focused his efforts in Minnesota and Colorado during the past two weeks, and is polling above GOP front-runner Mitt Romney in two of the three presidential contests today. (RELATED: Full coverage of the Republican primary)
In Colorado, Santorum trails Romney by 10 points, but leads him 45–32 in Missouri and 33–24 in Minnesota.
PPP Polling analyst Tom Jensen told the New York Daily News that Santorum is becoming the primary alternative to Romney among right-leaning Republican voters.
Santorum’s key supporters are mainly tea partiers, evangelicals, and voters who consider themselves “very conservative,” according to Jensen.
“While Romney and Gingrich have hammered each other in recent weeks,” he explained, “Santorum’s been largely left alone and he’s benefiting from that now.”
GOP rival Newt Gingrich, whose name will not appear on the Missouri ballot, admits that Santorum will do well in the Tuesday night contests.
“He targeted differently than I did. I stayed in Florida to fight it out,” Gingrich told reporters Monday.
“He took the same amount of time and energy,” the former House speaker added, “and he came to Minnesota and Missouri and Colorado. For him, that was the right decision.”