Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, in tight race on eve of Michigan primary

WASHINGTON - Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney was inching ahead of Rick Santorum in Michigan on Monday, just 24 hours before the high-stakes primary in the state where the former Massachusetts governor was born and raised.

A handful of new polls show Romney with a narrow lead following an unexpected two-week surge in the state by Santorum, his latest rival for the nomination.

A Rasmussen Reports poll had Romney leading with 38 per cent of the vote, compared to 36 per cent for Santorum. Public Policy Polling put Romney at 39 per cent and Santorum at 37 per cent. And a Foster McCollum White and Associates survey gave Romney a 39-31 advantage over the former Pennsylvania senator.

The battle for Michigan is seen as a crucial one in determining the party's ultimate nominee. If Romney ekes out a win in Michigan and takes Arizona, which is also holding its primary on Tuesday, he may have finally managed to seal the nomination.

If Romney loses in Michigan — a state he won handily in 2008 during his first run for president — his candidacy will suffer a devastating blow. It would leave Santorum, a staunch social conservative, heading into so-called Super Tuesday next week with not only momentum, but a newly earned reputation as a dragon-slayer.

"It certainly would be bad for Romney," Haley Barbour, the former Mississippi governor who pondered running for president himself earlier this year, told CBS News on Monday.

"This is his home state. He won it last time. So it would be a real setback. If he were to lose in Michigan and then Santorum, (Newt) Gingrich or both have a big day on Super Tuesday, then you could see an election that goes all the way to the convention."

Ten states vote next Tuesday in primaries and caucuses, including the delegate-rich crown jewels of Ohio and Georgia. All told, 437 delegates are at stake.

Santorum is in front of the pack in Ohio polls; Newt Gingrich, meantime, is on top in Georgia. Romney is expected to win states like Massachusetts and Vermont.

Romney has hit Santorum hard in Michigan with a barrage of negative advertising about the one-time senator's voting record during his years in Congress. He also bested him in a televised debate last week.

Santorum, meantime, has been thrown off his economic message in Michigan, a state hard-hit by tough economic times, thanks to a series of controversial comments that have highlighted his penchant for cranking up the heat on the country's ever-bubbling culture wars.

In recent days, Santorum has said he doesn't believe in the separation of church and state, he's ridiculed John F. Kennedy's pledge in 1960 not to impose his own Catholic faith on other religions and he's called U.S. President Barack Obama a "snob" for wanting Americans to get a college education.

In campaign appearances in Michigan on Monday, Santorum attempted to get the focus back on jobs and the economy.

"The biggest problem this state is going to have if we put our economic plan in place is having enough trained workers to do the jobs here in Michigan," Santorum said on a Detroit radio station. "That's a good problem to have."

Santorum proposes to completely eliminate corporate taxes for manufacturers, saying such a policy would particularly benefit Michigan and other Midwest states.

"We're going to tell everybody that wants to make anything around the world to come to Michigan, come to the industrial heartland of America and create the best products at the best price," he said.

Romney, meantime, told supporters in Michigan to rally their neighbours to vote for him on Tuesday.

"This is a critical time, you guys; I need your vote," he said, adding that Santorum was a "nice guy" who has nonetheless never had a job in the private sector.

"He has worked as a lobbyist and worked as an elected official and that's fine," Romney said. "But if the issue of the day is the economy, I think to create jobs it helps to have a guy as president who has had a job and I have."

Republican primary voters remain bitterly divided on what candidate they want to take on U.S. President Barack Obama in November.

Santorum is firing up the socially conservative base of the party but the Republican establishment fears his controversial positions on abortion, birth control and working women will all but doom him in a general election.

Romney is viewed with suspicion by many Republicans who doubt his conservative bona fides, and yet polls have long suggested he has the best chance to beat Obama.

But even the strength of his position against Obama has evidently been eroded as the Republican race drags on, according to a new survey by Politico and George Washington University.

The so-called battleground poll, released Monday, showed Obama's approval rating at 53 per cent, up a whopping 9 percentage points in four months.

In the poll, the president was shown leading Romney by 10 points in a hypothetical, general election match-up while holding an 11-percentage point lead over Rick Santorum.

Barbour said Monday that as the four remaining candidates in the race continue to duke it out, "the attention is taken away from Obama's policies and the results of those policies, which are mighty poor."

"Any time we're not talking about Obama's policies and the results of those policies, we're not talking about the best thing for the Republicans in the election."