New South Carolina Polls: Newt Gingrich Has Big Lead In Primary

WASHINGTON -- Two new telephone polls concluded on the eve of the South Carolina primary not only confirm continuing momentum toward Newt Gingrich; they suggest that the former House speaker may be headed for a surprisingly comfortable, double-digit win.

A live-interviewer survey conducted by the American Research Group on Thursday and Friday nights finds Gingrich now leading Mitt Romney 40 to 26 percent, followed by Ron Paul (18 percent) and Rick Santorum (13 percent). An ARG poll fielded earlier in the week had Gingrich and Romney in a virtual tie (with 32 and 31 percent, respectively).

That finding complements final results from the automated survey conducted over three nights by the Democratic Party firm Public Policy Polling, which shows Gingrich leading Romney 37 to 28 percent, followed by Santorum (16 percent) and Paul (14 percent). PPP noted that in the interviews it conducted on Friday evening, Gingrich led by a 40 to 26 percent margin -- exactly the same margin found by the ARG poll.

The HuffPost Pollster chart -- based on all available public polls of South Carolina voters, including the latest from ARG and PPP -- now shows Gingrich leading Romney by a 10-point margin (36.8 to 27.0 percent), followed by Paul and Santorum running far back in third and fourth place (with 15.6 and 13.1 percent, respectively). Support for Gingrich now stands at roughly the same level that polls found when his numbers first surged in late November 2011.

Friday night is a tough time to find some voters at home and, as such, is a far-from-ideal time to conduct a telephone survey. Caution about primary polling is always in order. However, the results from PPP and ARG suggest that if the unexpected occurs in South Carolina, the surprise may be less about the identity of the winner than the size of Newt Gingrich's margin of victory.

Comments

[snowmanjny]

11:08 AM on 01/23/2012

There are 2,495,806 registered voters in South Carolina. Only 601,166 voted in this primary. Of those only 243,153 voted for Newt. Taking into account the % of people that don't typically vote in these primary races you still have to acknowledge that Newt isn't exactly taking South Carolina or the nation by storm. I think the GOP is setting themselves up for a very fat failure.

[Lori Anne Ferullo]

04:26 PM on 01/22/2012

Do we want him or not because I really think that they all lie,biTch, fakes and cheating about anything or everything ,I hate them all for what they did to this world, and everything they do goes to SHIT!!!

[Novelist56]

09:21 AM on 01/22/2012

What I didn't get is the losers of SC were giving speeches like they won. Delusional.

[Mustangallee]

12:28 AM on 01/22/2012

UGH

[pensiondad]

11:36 PM on 01/21/2012

This result is very bad for Obama. The sooner the GOP disappears from the headlines the better for him.

[Novelist56]

09:12 AM on 01/22/2012

Why the hell is that?

[pensiondad]

05:10 PM on 01/22/2012

Keeps GOP candidates in news.

[rinpochet]

12:27 PM on 01/22/2012

I disagree. It's wonderful for Obama and the Democrats.

[pensiondad]

05:10 PM on 01/22/2012

OK fine, and you would be wrong.

[wehrleone]

11:14 PM on 01/21/2012

I wish all these bible thumpers would stop with the holier than thow stuff. No one has right to pass moral judgement on anyone else. If you don't like their life style it's your problem not theirs. Live with it. It's the way it is.

[lrobb]

10:51 PM on 01/21/2012

Before everyone gets too enthused or depressed about the results of the SC primary, you must take the numbers in context.

There are currently 2,722,344 registered voters. With 99% of the vote counted, there are 596,193 votes--21.9% of all registered voters.

The crucial question here is not why did Newt Gingrich win--currently at 40.34% to Romney's 27.87%--but why didn't the other 78.1% of registered voters show up, and what are they going to do come November?

In 2008 61.6% of registered voters actually voted. Apply that to today's SC numbers and you are missing 39.7% of the people who bother to vote. I know this is hard to believe, but even in SC some of them are Democrats, so their absence might be justified.

Even so, one has to wonder in this kind of highly charged, overly publicized and hotly contested race where the heck are the majority of normal Republican voters? Could they really not make up their mind and are willing to let less than a quarter of the voting public narrow their choices for them?

This will make for an interesting November if any of the pundits have managed to connect these same dots.

[Nathan Ottenson]

01:48 PM on 01/22/2012

There isn't a single appealing GOP candidate so it's not particularly surprising that many voters stayed home on Saturday

[JuliaDemJules2020]

10:40 PM on 01/21/2012

OBAMA 2012

[pensiondad]

11:37 PM on 01/21/2012

Noooooooooooo

[Novelist56]

09:13 AM on 01/22/2012

Yesssssssssssssss!!!

[rinpochet]

12:29 PM on 01/22/2012

With New and/or Romney, it's just about a certainty :)

The SCOTUS is reason alone to vote for Obama.

[msmPostcom]

09:37 PM on 01/21/2012

Here's something for the media to investigate:

Is Mitt Romney funding his SuperPac with his own money that is hidden offshore in the Cayman?
He has put his staff as managers of the SuperPAC. I bet he has already transferred money to people so they can donote to his superpac. They are donating his money? Follow the money

[ErniePyle]

09:24 PM on 01/21/2012

Let us not forget:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfHbw3n0EIM&feature=relmfu

[Portann]

09:11 PM on 01/21/2012

It doesn't matter, Newt, Mitt, Mewt, Nitt, both are far from relating to average Americans, continuing to re-thread the moral fibers of their family values quilt so that it now looks like "When Moths Attack."

[Mark Helfgott]

09:10 PM on 01/21/2012

How can he lose with that irresistible smile and dreamy Newt eyes?

[ILikeNike]

09:14 PM on 01/21/2012

Swoon......lol!

[Portann]

09:03 PM on 01/21/2012

Land of Strom Thurmond. Need I say more???

[jmc35741]

09:04 PM on 01/21/2012

Jesse Jackson won SC

[mairs]

10:31 PM on 01/21/2012

This is the Republican primary.

[orbillano]

09:01 PM on 01/21/2012

It's unbelievable that at the heart of the evangelicals this immoral , unethical person could win.

[Novelist56]

09:19 AM on 01/22/2012

Who?

[rinpochet]

12:34 PM on 01/22/2012

??

[rinpochet]

12:33 PM on 01/22/2012

Could it be that the promise of power to them is more important to them than ethics and morality?

[brt929]

05:43 PM on 01/22/2012

You know it is pretty comical when you think about it.  They hate the president so much, that they would actually elect the antithesis of their evangelical teachings!  

Gingrich had over 200 ethics violations when he was House Speaker and is guilty of serial adultery.  But the Yo-yos in SC just love him!  

[The Right Never Are]

08:38 PM on 01/21/2012

So in an alternate universe, Philip K. Dick dystopia fantasy where Newt Gingrich could be elected President, would Callista be referred to as The Third Lady?

[bamaliberal]

09:04 PM on 01/21/2012

Bwaaaahahaha.............. love it.

[dwillisno1]

09:07 PM on 01/21/2012

No just the third.