Mitt Romney's taken a modest lead in South Carolina. He's at 30 percent thereto 23 percent for Newt Gingrich and 19 percent for Rick Santorum. None of the other candidates hit double digits- Ron Paul at 9 percent, Rick Perry at 5 percent, Jon Huntsman at 4 percent, and BuddyRoemer at 1percent round out the field.
Romney's benefiting from very strong personal favorability numbers in the state- 60 percent ofvoters see him favorably to only 29 percent with a negative opinion, numbers that far outstripanything he ever posted in PPP's Iowa polling. And he also has the most committed supportout of the leading contenders. Sixty-seven percent of his supporters say they'll definitely vote for him.
Gingrich may be in second place right now but the candidate who would have the best chance of beating Romney in South Carolina is Santorum. PPP tested hypothetical head-to-head match ups between Romney and the other leading Republican candidates in the instance that were some drop outs before the primary. Romney defeats Gingrich handilyin such a match, 49-35. But Santorum runs only slightly behind Romney at 45-40.
“Mitt Romney’s the favorite in South Carolina,” said Dean Debnam, President of PublicPolicy Polling. “But with a couple of breaks Rick Santorum could win the state.”
PPP surveyed 1,112 likely Republican primary voters from January 5th to 7th. The margin pf error for the survey is +/-2.9 percent. This poll was not paid for or authorized by anycampaign or political organization. PPP surveys are conducted through automatedtelephone interviews. PPP is a Democratic polling company, but polling expert NateSilver of the New York Times found that its surveys in 2010 actually exhibited a slightbias toward Republican candidates.
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