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With Cain and Bachmann out, I’ve moved onto Santorum and am satisfied with the choice that I might still get a chance to vote FOR someone and not just AGAINST someone.

As for this SC poll, when I get home from Drill and get a break from studying, I’m set to go over the 46 counties of SC.

This poll surprises me because if we are to beleive Romney is at 27%, then something is happening in SC that did NOT happen in IA. That is, Romney needs McCain primary voters from 2008 to win SC. It didn’t happen in IA. As a showed yesterday, Santorum too most if not all of the Huckabee support, while Newt and Perry fought over the Thompson/McCain supporters as evidenced by their percentage totals.

In SC, Santorum’s getting a big edge in the NW Bible Belt and Greenville/Spartanburg. Newt and Perry will get a share of some of that, but for the most part, they’ll be fighting for the Thompson/McCain voters in Myrtle Beach, Darlington, Charleston, and Columbia.

EVEN with the conservative vote split, Romney is NOT in as strong enough position as McCain was to eek out a victory. McCain had at least some conservative credentials, and was supported big by the retirees in Horry and NE SC. For Romney to even have a prayer, he has to pick up a sizeable majority 10%+ of the vote here, something I viewed as difficult, considering this would be the part of the state I’d expect Gingrich and Paul to run their best in addition to what social voters support Santorum and Perry.

The bottom line is that if this Rasmussen poll is correct, then Newt is losing his large share of McCain voters from the 08 primary. If he still had it, then it would be very much likely for Santorum and Gingrich to run 1-2 in SC with Romney in 3rd.

The problem I have is how is it that the McCain voters in IA did not move to Romney in any significant numbers (Gingrich won the largest share of it), but yet they ARE moving to Romney in SC? This doesn’t make any sense. I understand McCain endorsed Romney Wednesday, but still, this is really difficult to fathom. We’re not talking small county pluralities here. Romney’s got to get like 30%+ in places Horry, while Gingrich and Santorum get less than 20%

Let’s use Charleston County as an example, a place McCain carried with 45% of the vote thanks in part to military members and veterans. In 08, it was Huck 16%, Romney 19%, Thompson 12%, McCain 45%, Paul 4%, Rudy 4%

Based on IA, I think it’s safe to say Santorum gets about 90% of Huck’s total, and probably about 25% of Thompson’s. That would give him about 6,070 votes. Gingrich would get about 70% of Thompson folks and was pulling in over 50% of the McCain votes, but that number appears to have dropped around 30%. So Gingrich gets about 7,481 votes. Rick Perry gets the other 5% of Thompson voters, and probably no more than 5% of McCain people for 967. Ron Paul brings in his lunatic fringe like usual, but remember, his rises were always at the expense of Romney in IA and the fact military people supposedly likes him, probably sees him pick up about 3,000. Finally, assuming Romney holds his own totals from 2008, and picks up 70% of the McCain voters, he’d get about 17,125 votes.

So the voting in Charleston County would be:
Romney - 17,125 - 49%
Newt - 7,481 - 22%
Santorum - 6,070 - 18%
Paul - 3,000 - 9%
Perry - 1,000 - 3%
Total: 34,676

Thankfully, there’s not enough urban places like this in the state (Thank you NW SC) to push Romney forward like this. But these are the kind of margins he’d have to get to win in the areas McCain won. And the only way he gets that to happen is by capturing McCain voters from 2008, a block that appears to have gone to Gingrich and Perry in IA.

So the Newt people need to stop bashing Santorum here. He is not the enemy in SC. The Newt people need to go after the McCain voters that this Rasmussen poll says Romney is getting. He can do this without having any negative effect on Santorum. The SC result could easily end up being Santorum: 32%, Newt: 28%, Romney: 25%, Paul: 11%, Perry 4%.