I find it odd that Newt is polling #1 in Mississippi, followed by Romney.
Newt's "one of us". Southern conservatives like to vote for fellow good-ol'-boys. Whereas that Santorum feller is not only a carpetbagging Yankee, but probably comes off a bit too strident and preachy. As much as religion is of import in the South, there's also a saying that the reason Baptists are so keen to go to church on Sunday is because they need to make up for what they did on Saturday night. Newt is the kind of guy that they'd be out drinking with on Saturday night. (Although honestly, he uses too many 50-cent words. If Rick Perry was still in the race, he'd be obliterating Gingrich in the South...Perry seems like the kind of guy who actually
has been out drinking most Saturday nights...)
That Romney is in 2nd...yeah, that's a bit odd. Maybe Santorum dissed the Confederate flag or something.
EDIT:
Nate Silver, hoopy frood that he is, put up this map to show how geographically-bounded the candidates' wins have been:
That bodes ill for Santorum, because frankly he's winning the "flyover states". Which inherently have lower population and fewer delegates than the two coasts that Romney is winning. Also, it means (not that this is shocking revelation or anything) that he's winning in states the GOP is likely to carry in November anyways. Romney's winning the swing states and blue states. The blue states are meaningless for the most part. There is no way that Massachusetts goes GOP in the general election. But winning the swing states does bolster Romney's argument for being the more competitive candidate to some extent.
The counter-argument to that being that diehard conservatives may be so disenchanted with a Romney candidacy that they'll stay home or vote 3rd party in protest, losing the swing states and possibly even costing him a few traditionally red ones. Could be a mirror image of 2004, where a deeply unpopular G.W. Bush won a bigger margin of victory for re-election than he did for his initial election, in part because of lukewarm support for John Kerry. Even though most people on the blue side of the spectrum would have voted for a dead woodchuck before they voted for Bush, and third party votes were extremely low because of what happened with Nader and Gore in 2000, the enthusiasm wasn't there. Which meant lower fundraising, weaker ground game, sluggish GOTV efforts.