Former reality-television host Donald Trump has a substantial 16-point lead in the Republican primary contest in South Carolina on the heels of his New Hampshire primary victory, according to an Opinion Savvy poll released Friday.
The poll, which was the first taken in South Carolina since before the New Hampshire primary, also indicates that competition for second place remains tight in a spread that is consistent with much national polling and with most previous poll results.
The poll showed support for Trump in South Carolina at 36 percent, followed by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) at 20 percent, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) at 15 percent and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) at 11 percent.
This indicates only minor shifts in the South Carolina race following the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. When Opinion Savvy polled the state last month, it found Trump leading at 32 percent, followed by Cruz at 18 percent, Bush at 13 percent and Rubio at 11 percent.
TPM’s PollTracker Average shows Trump leading in the state by 36.8 percent, followed by Cruz at 19.7 percent, Rubio at 13 percent and Bush at 9.8 percent.
The Opinion Savvy poll of likely Republican voters was carried out from Feb. 10-11. Pollsters surveyed 779 people using Interactive Voice Recognition software, with a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.
Here’s a very interesting (and disturbingly credible) thought experiment from Obama’s speech writer Jon Favreau:
Remember, this means 65% are not for Donald “the draft dodging Coward” Trump. After he goes through the dirty meat grinder called SC Republican politics, and a few more of the dwarfs drop out, he will probably look even less attractive.
I think Jefferson Davis had the same lead once as well.
I really don’t understand why people continue to make that point. If Trump is far and away the frontrunner with 35‰ of the vote then, according to that logic, those sitting at 15‰ are losing 85‰ of the vote.
I’ve always seen Trump as an easily beatable clown should he win the GOP nomination – but I read the above piece by Jon Favreau and I think its time for a reassessment. Favreau points out that we are not hearing what Trump’s message is beyond the inflammatory bits that reinforce our assumption that he is not to be taken seriously. When you see how Favreau distills from Trumps own words, an inspiring resonant message (not too dissimilar in aspiration than Sanders’) it becomes clear that democrats are going to have a tough time countering it effectively. Its an emotional appeal, not an intellectual one, and actually really scary to think how many people will buy into it. Our party better figure it out. I started a thread on The Hive to see if people care to discuss strategies and how that might differ between Sanders and Clinton.