Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum has dedicated much of his time and money trying to win over voters in Iowa in recent weeks, and it finally seems to be paying dividends.
According to the Des Moines Register’s latest in-state poll, Santorum is quickly gaining ground on frontrunners Mitt Romney and Ron Paul. Santorum now sits in third place in Iowa with 15 percent support, nearly a double-digit deficit after four days of polling.
Romney and Paul rake in 24 and 22 percent support, respectively, and though Santorum has struggled to gain national notoriety in the Republican presidential primary, he has continued to climb in Iowa.
In fact, Santorum has seen figures that look more promising than his four-day, 15 percent would lead you to believe. According to the poll, the order of the top three candidates in Iowa is rearranged in the last two days, with Santorum replacing Paul as the number two in Iowa.
In the first two days of polling, Santorum was barely seeing double-digit support with ten percent. In the final day of polling, however, Santorum’s rise became more evident when he doubled his earlier totals, falling just one percentage point short of Mitt Romney’s 23 percent.
The poll was conducted from Dec. 27-30 and results are based on the telephone interviews of 602 likely Republican voters.