Gallup: Both Romney and Santorum Close to Obama

If the electability is a key component in deciding your vote for the GOP Presidential nomination,this latest Gallup poll has your answer---it shouldn't be.

The latest Gallup poll took a look at the match ups between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, and between Obama and Rick Santorum. The poll shows Romney is  ahead of Obama, 50% to 46%, and Santorum trailing Obama slightly, 49% to 48%, both results are within the margin of error.

Santorum and Romney are the current leaders in the volatile Republican primary race. In Gallup Daily tracking conducted Feb. 17-21, 35% of Republican voters nationwide support Santorum, compared with 27% for Romney, 15% for Newt Gingrich, and 10% for Ron Paul.

Santorum's results (which were gathered before last night's debate) was an improvement  over his results  in the Jan. 27-28, when Obama led Santorum by eight percentage points, 51% to 43%.

The Obama versus Romney results are not significantly different from previous USA Today/Gallup polls, or from previous measures included on the Gallup Daily tracking survey. The gap between Obama and Romney across all previous measures has varied between zero and four points, none of which is statistically significant.

It will be interesting to see what effects Santorum's poor performance in last night's debate will have on the former Pennsylvania Senator's polling results, but as for now, it doesn't really matter which of these two gets the nomination. What's most impressive is both of these candidates are close to Obama even though most of their attention has been on each other.  Once the nominee is selected and the attention turns to the President we should see a much better showing for the GOP nominee