Romney has big lead in Nevada
LAS VEGAS — Republican front-runner Mitt Romney has taken a big lead in Nevada, the next state to vote for a Republican candidate to run against U.S. President Barack Obama in November, a new poll showed Thursday.
Fresh from a decisive victory in Florida, Romney was polling 45 per cent to nearest rival Newt Gingrich’s 25 per cent in the survey of likely Republican caucus-goers by the Las Vegas Review-journal and 8 New snow.
Nevada Republicans hold caucuses on Saturday to pick 28 delegates to the Republican national convention, the first nominating contest in the western United States.
Trailing in the Nevada poll were former senator Rick Santorum with 11 per cent and Texas congressman Ron Paul with nine per cent.
Powering Gingrich’s bid in Nevada are conservative Republicans who say they are strong Tea Party supporters, 37 per cent of whom said they would vote for the former House speaker to 27 per cent for Romney.
Fellow Mormons opt for Romney by an overwhelming 85.5 per cent, the poll found. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, its official name, was organized in the United States in 1830 and represents two per cent of the U.S. population.
Though only seven per cent of Nevada’s population are Mormons, they accounted for a quarter of Republican caucus-goers in 2008, which Romney won with 51 per cent of the vote.
The telephone poll was conducted Friday through Tuesday by the Cannon Survey Center at the University of Nevada, which interviewed 426 Republicans who said they planned to attend the caucuses.