Rick Santorum currently holds a solid lead in the upcoming Michigan primary according to four recent polls of the state. In the polls, the Santorum lead over Mitt Romney ranges from 3-10 points.

The huge rapid swings taking place in the Republican primary this year are truly crazy. Only a week ago Newt Gingrich’s overall level of support shot up by double digits nationally in the states with upcoming primaries, South Carolina and Florida. This surge allowed Gingrich to win a significant victory in South Carolina and give him a big lead in the polling in Florida.

Yet in just a few days there are now signs that the momentum may swung quite sharply against Gingrich. Three new polls out today now give Mitt Romney a 7-8 point lead in Florida.

A few of the recent polls of South Carolina still show Mitt Romney leading but there are strong signs that Newt Gingrich has gained some serious momentum after Romney’s poor debate performance this week. For example, the Marist poll, which shows Romney with a large 10 point lead, picked up a big shift in the last day of their polling.

Newt Gingrich continues to lead in all the national polls but we are starting to get the first signs that his incredible surge over the past two months is starting to fade. Over the past week Gingrich has been dropping steadily in the Gallup national daily tracking poll of the GOP primary.

A new poll from Rasmussen finds the American people nearly evenly divided on whether or not to legalize and tax marijuana to help the government bring in new revenue.

A large number of Americans would vote for a viable third-party candidate for president. Now, if we could only find one…

In order to clear up any confusion about whether Tea Partiers or Republicans are racist, I have compiled a helpful list of possible signs of racism. If none of them apply to you, then congratulations, you’re just as not-racist as you think you are. If they do, please stop complaining about what a bum rap you’re getting.

The latest SurveyUSA poll of California found Republican Meg Whitman with a single-point lead over Democrat Jerry Brown in the race for governor, and incumbent Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer trailing Carly Fiorina in her re-election bid.

New data shows that support for offshore drilling has reached its lowest level ever in Rasmussen’s latest polling. Here’s how the GOP-friendly pollster** frames the latest data (emphasis mine):

With the deepwater oil leak apparently capped after three months of gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, support for both offshore oil drilling and drilling further out in deepwater remains largely unchanged. Most voters also remain concerned about the potential environmental impact of new drilling.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 56% of U.S. Voters now believe offshore oil drilling should be allowed, while 26% oppose it. One-in-five voters (19%) are undecided.

That’s down from 60% last month. Since the oil rig explosion that caused the massive oil leak, support for offshore drilling has ranged from 56% to 64%.

Predictably, Rasmussen leaves most of the useful information out of their analysis. In their polling immediately prior to the rig explosion in the Gulf, 72% of likely voters supported offshore drilling. Even with Rasmussen’s skewed likely voter model, this represents a 16% shift in just 11 weeks. The current level of support among likely voters, 56%, is the lowest ever recorded by Rasmussen for this question. Moreover, support among Democrats for offshore drilling has dropped from 54% in early April to just 29% in the latest poll. Support among Republicans remains relatively flat, down just 4%. GOP support for offshore drilling, at 82%, is actually up 8% from its low point in late May.

Citing a Rasmussen poll Greg Sargent took note of yesterday, which indicated that 22% of Americans currently have a favorable view of BP, Barbara Morrill at Daily Kos asks who these 22% of Americans are. Using the crosstabs from the poll (premium account required), I put together this chart to answer Barbara’s question.