Nightly News   |  February 22, 2012

Romney pulls ahead among early voters

New numbers from the latest NBC News-Marist poll indicate Mitt Romney’s campaign excels in organization whereas Rick Santorum’s campaign has been capitalizing on ideology. NBC’s Chuck Todd reports.

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>>> to the campaign trail. as gop contenders debate tonight for the 20th time, we have new numbers from our nbc news/marist poll on where they stand. chuck todd our political director is with us tonight with the new numbers. good evening.

>> reporter: good evening, brian. in many cases next tuesday with michigan and arizona becoming a junior tuesday to the following tuesdays super tuesday of primaries and we've got numbers in both states. in michigan , romney up 37-35 over santorum . arizona , a bigger lead where the debate is being held tonight for mitt romney . he sits at 43-27. interestingly, both polls are able to show the same story which is its organization for romney versus ideology and momentum for santorum . look at this. among those folks who voted in michigan , you have mitt romney with a 23-point lead and arizona among those folk whose already voted, he's got a 30-point lead. santorum 's strength is ideology among tea party supporters, he leads romney by 20 points in michigan . among those who call themselves conservative, he leads by almost 40 points in michigan . that's what this has come down to. tonight's debate may tell us a lot. it's organization with romney versus momentum and ideology and passion for santorum .

>> chuck todd , thanks, as always.