The Hill News

Rick Santorum is now the top choice among Republican voters in Ohio according to a new poll from Quinnipiac University, the latest in a string of surveys showing the former Pennsylvania senator surging ahead of presumptive frontrunner Mitt Romney.

Santorum was the choice of 36 percent of likely voters in the survey, compared to 29 percent for Romney. Newt Gingrich earned the support of 20 percent of respondents, while Ron Paul narrowly missed cracking double digits, earning the nod from 9 percent of likely voters.

"For the first time, numerically more voters in Ohio view Romney unfavorably than favorably. His pattern in the earlier primary states has been to use his money advantage to run a large number of negative ads on his biggest challenger. But doing so now risks further increasing Romney's own unfavorables as a side effect of throwing the mud himself. Yet, Romney may feel the need to raise questions about the lesser-known Santorum in the eyes o! f GOP voters," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, in a statement.

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