Santorum Likely to Formally Announce on June 5

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum will most likely launch a formal presidential bid on June 5 a source “close” to the former Senator told ABC News. Santorum will be joining an already crowded field of Republicans who are running or plan to run.

The announcement is not particularly surprising. Santorum did participate in the first Republican presidential debate with former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson and pizza magnate Herman Cain. That debate has been criticized for lacking the presumptive front runners including Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Mitch Daniels and Mike Huckabee (though Huckabee and Daniels have since announced that they won’t be running). Santorum did win a post debate straw poll among South Carolina Republicans when he was the only candidate to show up for it.

Fox News also suspended Santorum’s contract as a contributor to the network due to the former senator’s political aspirations. According to the Christian Science Monitor, Santorum made less than $100,000 for his Fox News gig while Palin and Gingrich each pull down about $1 million, though Gingrich has also been suspended and Palin would likely be suspended as well if she announces a candidacy.

Santorum has been one of the most active candidates on the ground so far in the 2012 season. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that he has filled out the top campaign spots in early primary states. CNN reported that Santorum has visited each of the first three primary states – Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina – more than a dozen times already.

Santorum faces an uphill battle for the nomination. A recent Gallup poll has him pulling in just two percent support among 11 candidates and only 47 percent name recognition among Republican voters. He also ranks on the low end of Gallup’s positive intensity score scale, with measures how enthusiastic his supporters are about his candidacy. On that scale, he only beats Johnson and former Utah governor and ambassador to China John Huntsman. His numbers are low enough that Gallup did not include Santorum in their expanded analysis of the field.

Additionally, polling and analysis by Zogby still puts Santorum at about three percent in a field of 13, placing him near the bottom of the field and tied with Gingrich, who has seen his poll numbers take a nosedive. The one silver lining for Santorum is that he has a respectable 64 percent support among self-described conservatives in a match up against Barack Obama. Still, he trails Palin, Cain, Pawlenty and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann in that category.

Another problem that Santorum faces will be money. The Center for Responsive Politics noted that Santorum was among the least wealthy senators, ranking 60^th at the time, and has an estimated personal wealth of between $500,000 and $1.8 million. In contrast, Romney may be able to use millions of dollars of his own money in a campaign. During his failed run for the 2008 GOP nomination, Romney spent more than $35 million of his own money along with $88.5 million from other sources. Presumably, that spending did not put much of a dent in the former Massachusetts Governor’s personal fortune of about $250 million. Romney still only won ten primaries and 148 delegates in 2008 before dropping out after Super Tuesday.

On the other hand, Santorum does have an active political action committee (PAC) called America’s Foundation based in Downington. America’s Foundation raised about $2.8 million, ranking it seventh among PACs and contributed generously to Republican candidates during the 2010 midterms. That PAC would be particularly useful in any fund-raising efforts.

Still, even if Santorum manages to land the nomination, he faces an uphill battle even in his home state. Historically, Keystone State Democrats come out in presidential years and Pennsylvania has swung Democratic for five consecutive presidential elections. In the three previous elections, the state voted Republican, though the Democrats severely underperformed in 1980, 1984 and 1988. Democrats hold a registration edge of about one million voters.

Republicans have been stronger in midterm elections, though Republican Pat Toomey just barely won in 2010 and Santorum himself got trounced by 18 points in 2006. Recent polling shows Santorum would get defeated even more soundly in a hypothetical rematch with Bob Casey Jr. Casey will be on the ballot with Obama in 2012.

Polling from late April, prior to Obama’s popularity surge in the wake of the killing of Osama bin Laden – and probably the best current predictor of a 2012 election – showed the president’s reelect numbers slipping in Pennsylvania, though he only loses to a generic Republican. Another early April poll from Democratic pollsters Public Policy Polling showed Obama narrowly defeating most Republican candidates, though Romney had a one point edge. The same poll shows Obama beating Santorum by only two points. Both results are within the poll’s margin of error, though the poll was an automated telephone poll, so the number should be taken with a grain of salt. In contrast, an early March poll conducted by Muhlenburg College and the Allentown Morning Call showed Obama only really struggling with an unnamed Republican challenger in Pennsylvania and easily defeating Palin, Romney and Huckabee. Again, those numbers should be used with caution as the poll only included 395 respondents and has a rather high margin of error of 4.5 percent.