Mitt Romney has pulled ahead of Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania and is threatening to overrun the conservative's last bastion of support, polls have shown.
Mitt Romney has pulled ahead of Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania and is threatening to overrun the conservative's last bastion of support, polls have shown.
Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, hopes to use victory in his home state to relaunch his faltering bid for the Republican nomination but has also admitted that he must win there for his campaign to maintain any credibility.
For Mr Romney, the overwhelming front-runner, a win in Pennsylvania could at last force Mr Santorum out of the race and allow him to turn his sights onto President Barack Obama and November's general election.
A poll from PPP yesterday (Thursday) put Romney on 42%, five points ahead of Santorum and leading the pack in the Keystone State for the first time since October.
Most worrying for Santorum is that the former Massachusetts governor appears to have made deep inroads among Christian evangelicals and very conservative voters - a sign that even the party's restive base is preparing to accept a relative moderate as their nominee.
What little hope Santorum has left rests on surviving until May, when southern and western states such as Arkansas, Kentucky and Texas offer the chance to reclaim lost ground.
However, to win Santorum would have to claim three quarters of the remaining delegates, while Romney needs less than half, a rate of victory that he has consistently exceeded. Even if Santorum does hold out in Pennsylvania he is likely to lose badly in the April 24 elections, when moderate states such as New York and Connecticut are expected to give Romney a string of victories.
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