Jimbo's Link
8 pages of breakdowns and not one listing % of vote among Evangelicals which the consensus pegs at 60% of the vote in SC (Ted Cruz did at least "OK" with that demographic in Iowa if I recall correctly).
Sorry, but I see this as another example of a cherry-picked poll designed to show a predetermined favorability.
Thanks for the free entertainment; any shot you'll throw in some free popcorn on the next one?
Everyone is going to get all excited about the South Carolina polls, not remembering that the Iowa polls were quite wrong right up until they counted the votes. There's something about high populations of evangelical voters that public opinion polls don't measure accurately. You can look at most any Southern state (or Iowa) that was competitive during the 2012 GOP primaries, and whoever was considered the most Conservative candidate (usually Santorum in 2012) nearly always outperformed their final poll average by 5-10 points. Even if Trump really is that high currently - which I seriously doubt - he's going to take a tumble after he takes a barrage of negative ads all week long. I read today that a Cruz Super-PAC will be coming out with an ad about Trump's support for Gun Control here shortly.
I saw another SC poll from today and it had Trump beating Cruz among both "very conservative" and "evangelical" voters. I'll eat my hat if Trump wins EITHER of those groups among Republican South Carolina voters next Saturday.
Think it's closer to 65%, and Cruz won that group pretty handily in Iowa as I recall, though I don't remember the exact margin. Also, evangelical turnout in Iowa was about 8% higher than it had been in 2012, I think partly because of the Cruz ground game and partly because of all the people Trump inspired to come out and vote against him. No reason to think the same thing won't happen in South Carolina.
Everyone thought that about Iowa also. The last 13 polls had Trump in the lead, most by 5+ points. And we know the final result there.
Let's think back to South Carolina in 2012. Newt Gingrich was in the low 20's in the polls less than a week before South Carolina voted. He had his "breakout" moment with a superior debate performance that week and ended up with 40% of the vote. Romney had been in the mid 30's less than a week before the vote, and ended up with 28%. I think Trump's support in SC is extremely overstated, but even if it's not, he absolutely can lose it in the debate tonight. He's going to have more fire trained on him tonight than any other debate so far. Watch. There's going to be fireworks.
God bless, Steve
