Rick Santorum is well-poised to win the Washington GOP caucus, especially if he pulls off another primary win or two before all eyes turn to the Evergreen State March 3. According to a new survey by Public Policy Polling, Santorum shines in the Pacific Northwestern state:

Wedged between the Michigan/Arizona primaries and Super Tuesday the Washington state GOP caucus hasn’t received a lot of attention. At least for now it looks like it could give Rick Santorum some momentum headed into the critical March 6th contests. He leads there with 38% to 27% for Mitt Romney, 15% for Ron Paul, and 12% for Newt Gingrich.

Santorum is by far the most popular of the Republican candidates with 69% viewing him favorably to only 18% with a negative opinion.  Romney is the only other one who even has a positive favorability rating. He’s at 47/42. The disparity between Santorum and Romney’s numbers in Washington resembles what we found for the contests two weeks ago in Missouri and Minnesota, both of which Santorum ended up winning by a healthy margin.

PPP predicts a particularly rough time in Washington for Newt Gingrich — and states explicitly that Gingrich’s continued presence in the race keeps Romney competitive, as 59 percent of his supporters say they would switch to Rick Santorum if the former Speaker of the House dropped out. Just 13 percent say they would go to Romney. Question 8 of the poll removes Gingrich from the equation and asks voters again whom they’d pick. In that scenario, Santorum leads Romney 49 to 28.

But the polling group also reminds readers that the race has been and still is volatile. Half of voters in Washington say they could change their mind between now and March 3 — and Romney’s supporters are more firmly committed than Santorum’s, which means a Romney victory in Washington is definitely not out of the question.

Still, this poll confirms that Santorum’s strategy so far has been sound: He’s zeroed in on the states in which he thinks he could be competitive and has concentrated his time and attention accordingly. Washington has been one of those states — and, just as in Iowa, Missouri and probably Michigan, voters will reward him for his pointed physical presence in their state.