Romney takes big lead in Nevada

Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney has taken a big lead in Nevada, the next state to vote for a Republican candidate to run against President Barack Obama in November, a new poll showed Thursday. Fresh from a decisive victory in Florida, Romney was polling 45 percent to nearest rival Newt Gingrich’s 25 percent in the survey of likely Republican caucus-goers by the Las Vegas Review-Journal and 8NewsNow. Nevada Republicans hold caucuses on Saturday to pick 28 delegates to the Republican national convention, the first nominating contest in the western United States. Trailing in the Nevada poll were former senator Rick Santorum with 11 percent and Texas congressman Ron Paul with nine percent. Powering Gingrich’s bid in Nevada are conservative Republicans who say they are strong Tea Party supporters, 37 percent of whom said they would vote for the former House speaker to 27 percent for Romney. Fellow Mormons opt for Romney by an overwhelming 85.5 percent, the poll found. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS), its official name, was organized in the United States in 1830 and now represents 2% of the US population. Though only seven percent of Nevada’s population are Mormons, they accounted for a quarter of Republican caucus-goers in 2008, which Romney won with 51 percent of the vote. The telephone poll was conducted Friday through Tuesday by the Cannon Survey Center at the University of Nevada, which interviewed 426 Republicans who said they planned to attend the caucuses.