Posted on 01/12/2012 7:12:19 AM PST by TBBT
Despite a historic sweep of the first two nominating contests in the GOP field, Mitt Romney holds just a two percentage point lead in South Carolina, his smallest lead of 2012.
Romney is the favorite of 23 percent of South Carolina voters, narrowly edging Newt Gingrich's 21 percent, according to the latest poll from Insider Advantage. Rick Santorum pulls 14 percent of Palmetto state voters, while Ron Paul rounds out the top four with 13 percent. Jon Huntsman's seven percent and Rick Perry's five percent trail the pack.
The numbers could indicate that Gingrich's aggressive strategy - which has included controversial attacks on Mitt Romney's business and abortion records - is gaining him traction by hurting the GOP frontrunner.
In the three other major South Carolina polls completed in the new year, Romney was earning 37 percent, 27 percent, and 30 percent, according to Real Clear Politics - meaning his 23 percent in the latest poll marks a precipitous decline.
Gingrich, meanwhile, has maintained a steady band of support between 18 and 23 percent.
The poll may also signal the beginning of the end of the Santorum boomlet, who has fallen 10 percentage points from a Rasmussen poll released just after his near-win in the Iowa caucuses. That too could help Gingrich, who hopes conservatives in South Carolina will rally around his campaign as an alternative to Romney.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
New anti-Newt attacks ads coming out from the Romney super PAC.
Might these numbers be real?
Go, Newt, Go!
my faith is being restored in South Carolina.
Now that Mitt is FINALLY being vetted watch for his numbers to crumble.
Go Newt!
ppp has numbers right in line with this, newt is going to win South Carolina.
BTW, there's nothing historic about Romney's winning the first 2 primaries ~ the cold hard facts are he did not win Iowa ~ that was Santorum's win.
Remember Iowa has an unemployment rate in the 5% range and the caucus only drew 120,000 voters.
Mitt owns a home in NH and was Gov. of this tiny states big brother, Taxachussetts.
So in many ways, SC with 10% unemployment is the first “real” primary, one that is representative of more than a small sliver of the country.
The numbers look real. Santorum has taken 10 percentage points from Romney according to the Insider Advantage polls and a whopping > 20 points according to Rasmussen.
The first two—Iowa and New Hampshire—are a joke.
Now we get down to business. Go Newt.
“Public Policy Polling (PPP) is an American Democratic Party-affiliated polling firm”...
Just sayin...
historic sweep? Mitt won Iowa by 8 votes and that is a sweep? I question the 8 vote win.
Newt needs some big guns to come to SC and campaign with him. Run a slew of anti Romney ads...and his supporters need to flood the newspapers, talk shows and media on his behalf. GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO NEWT
I want to see a couple of more polls in this range before I get comfortable with it. I would exercise caution until we can be sure this isn’t an outlier.
For what it’s worth, it’s not just PPP that appears to confirm Insider Advantage (taken on the 11th). We Ask America’s latest South Carolina survey (taken on the 9th), taken just 48 hours before Insider Advantage shows almost exactly the same thing.
In other words, there are no less than three polls now, if you count the unreleased PPP survey coming out tomorrow, showing South Carolina with a strong Gingrich, a severely weakened Santorum, and a Romney that’s tied with Gingrich and moving down. The CPSR for Romney in these two surveys is 22.9-26.7%; the Romney CPSR for the previous two surveys, Rasmussen (taken 1/5) and PPP (1/5-7), is 27-31%. Clearly Romney has hit a little rough patch in the state.
| Poll | Date | Sample | Romney | Gingrich | Santorum | Paul | Perry | Huntsman | Spread |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RCP Average | 1/4 - 1/11 | -- | 29.3 | 20.0 | 19.0 | 11.3 | 5.0 | 3.5 | Romney +9.3 |
| Insider Advantage | 1/11 - 1/11 | 726 LV | 23 | 21 | 14 | 13 | 5 | 7 | Romney +2 |
| PPP (D) | 1/5 - 1/7 | 1112 LV | 30 | 23 | 19 | 9 | 5 | 4 | Romney +7 |
| Rasmussen Reports | 1/5 - 1/5 | 750 LV | 27 | 18 | 24 | 11 | 5 | 2 | Romney +3 |
| CNN/Time | 1/4 - 1/5 | 485 LV | 37 | 18 | 19 | 12 | 5 | 1 | Romney +18 |
Wait a minute! I thought there were 57 states, or at least 50. How could wins in three small states decide the nominee? THEY DON'T! The results in the two piss ant states of Iowa & NH don't mean shite. The news media and even some (self described) “conservative” talk show hosts, think they can force Romney on us by telling us that it's already decided. “Resistance is futile, You will be assimilated”.
I say BULL$HIT on that. Let the voters decide. The media and certain radio hosts (Rush & Sean) should GET OFF NEWT'S BACK! and stop shilling for Romney. It is becoming all to obvious.
Give me a break.
Wait a minute! I thought there were 57 states, or at least 50.
Close in one way. There are 56 jurisdictions that hold primaries which include five foreign territories and DC.
The numbers could indicate that Gingrich’s aggressive strategy - which has included controversial attacks on Mitt Romney’s business and abortion records -*******
Newt can also thank Perry who is just brutalizing Romney. Perry’s Hannity interview on the evening of the NH Primary was a bloodletting. Perry repeatedly called Myth a vulture capitalist and refused to back down in spite of constant badgering by Hannity. Hannity was extremely frustrated by the end of the interview with Perry also calling into question Myth’s numerous position changes.
It may not be helping Perry but there’s no doubt in my mind this is harming Romney greatly in SC.
Slightly off-subject, but does anyone know Romney’s position(s) on affirmative action? I have a friend who’s unfamiliar with Romney’s record, and I’ve been supplying her with FR articles and the Romney truth file. But she says she wants to know his AA position because she’s looking for anything positive.
For me, he could be totally against it and it would be like finding a fragment of a pearl in a pile of crap——completely inconsequential.
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