Santorum has home-field advantage in Pa., if not at Pitt

The Pitt College Republicans group at Rick Santorum’s alma mater doesn’t include a single… The Pitt College Republicans group at Rick Santorum’s alma mater doesn’t include a single member who supports him in the Republican primary, but polls suggest that Santorum would have a home-field advantage when the primary comes to Pennsylvania.

In his poll of the Pitt club’s members on Jan. 31, Casey Rankin, president of the Pitt College Republicans, said that among the presidential contenders, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney received 93 percent of the vote, and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich received 7 percent, while former Pennsylvania Sen. Santorum, who is from suburban Pittsburgh, did not receive a single vote. This was the first time the group voted to endorse a primary candidate.

The Pitt College Republicans’ vote stands in stark contrast to a Franklin & Marshall College poll released Thursday, which shows Santorum leading Romney by 39 points among Pennsylvania Republicans. Santorum’s national stock has surged in the wake of his Feb. 7 wins in Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado. According to the poll, that momentum has diffused east to his home state.

Rankin cited Santorum’s spending record in the Senate — his votes to raise the debt ceiling and to oppose the National Right to Work Act, for example — as a reason for his lack of support within the student organization.

“And he’s outside the mainstream American thought, especially on college campuses, with regard to social issues and some of the more homophobic statements. But it’s definitely a two-sided thing,” he said.

Today, Arizona and Michigan — Romney’s home state — will hold primaries. Three polls released Monday had Romney ahead in Michigan by an average of four points, whereas a fourth poll showed Santorum ahead by two points. The last four Arizona polls showed Romney with a 13 to 17 point lead in the state.

Though he was born in Virginia, Santorum has spent most of his life in Pennsylvania, particularly in the Pittsburgh area. He grew up in nearby Butler County and received his MBA from Pitt’s Katz Graduate School of Business. After working as a lawyer in Pittsburgh, Santorum was elected to the House of Representatives in Pennsylvania’s 18th congressional district, which included Allegheny County, in 1990. He then made the jump to the Senate, winning races in 1994 and 2000.

But, as a two-term incumbent in 2006, Santorum lost his senate seat to Bob Casey Jr., the son of a popular former governor, by a decisive 18 points — the largest margin for an incumbent senator since 1980.

“Santorum, yes, he got clobbered by Casey in 2006,” said Terry Madonna, director of Franklin & Marshall’s Center for Politics & Public Affairs. “But he’s still got the hometown-boy thing going for him, and he has a lot of support among Pennsylvania Republicans. After all, he was elected twice to the United States Senate here.”

Santorum’s drubbing in 2006 was the result of multiple factors, Madonna wrote in an article published Feb. 14 on Franklin & Marshall’s website. For one, the Republican Senator was caught in a political environment hostile to his party. Public opinion had turned against the Iraq War and the Bush administration, to which Santorum was closely linked. Santorum himself stoked public outrage with his controversial comments on homosexuality and his questioning of the role of women in the workplace.

On the other hand, Madonna wrote that Santorum’s growing confidence, disciplined focus and “cunning politician” persona suggest that he has a real shot at the presidency. He added that the Republican party at least once before gave the presidential nomination to a polarizing candidate who had recently lost a Senate race. “The year was 1860,” Madonna wrote, and “his name was Abraham Lincoln.”

But Rick Hill, the Pitt College Republicans’ public relations chair, said that Santorum’s local ties hold no bearing over his organization’s members because, like the rest of Pitt’s student-body, not everyone in the group is from Pennsylvania.

“We’re from all over the place,” said Hill, a resident of Williamsport, in the center of the state. “If everybody was from Pittsburgh, it may very well be that way. But our club is composed of such a diverse bunch in terms of where everyone is from, that the western PA and Pitt thing doesn’t matter as much as you might think.”

Hill said the Republican nominee’s chances at beating President Barack Obama in the general election in November is the most important issue for the group, and in his opinion, Santorum is not electable.

“For me, while I do agree with Sen. Santorum on a lot of things, I just don’t think he can win a general election,” Hill said. “There are just so many things that he can be maligned for. Things can be twisted that he’s said or done in the past that it’s too difficult to elect him in the general election.”

Santorum’s campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Madonna cautioned that the Franklin & Marshall poll results are subject to change, given that the Pennsylvania primary is not until April 24. Additionally, 46 percent of respondents in the poll said they could switch the candidate they support between now and the primary.

“In other words, there could still be a change once things happen,” Madonna said. “Now, it could happen nationally; it could be Santorum falls off a cliff, if you will, into the provocative stuff that he’s been known for — different emotions in combat between men and women, to the president’s theology. And the other thing is: there’s no campaign here. The candidates have done nothing to shape the nature of the vote in our state.”

Madonna said the he doesn’t expect the candidates to start campaigning in Pennsylvania until about three weeks before the primary because of prior contests in other states. The primary race will hit 31 more states — including 10 on Super Tuesday on March 6 — before reaching Pennsylvania.

But according to Madonna, when the campaigns finally heat up in Pennsylvania, Santorum’s time as senator should protect him from the pro-Romney super PAC ads airing in states such as Michigan that label Santorum a “big spender” who “brought all that money home to Pennsylvania.”

“Somehow, I don’t think that’s going to work here,” he said.

Rankin added that the College Republicans will support the Republican candidate regardless of who wins the nomination, even though he thinks that it’d be most difficult to convince members to “go out and knock on doors and make phone calls for Rick Santorum.”

“Essentially,” he said, “I’d rather have anyone than Barack Obama.”