Public Policy Polling

South Carolina special election looks like a toss-up

Raleigh, N.C. – PPP's first look at the special election in South Carolina's 1st Congressional District finds a toss up race. Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch leads Republican Mark Sanford 47-45 and ties Curtis Bostic at 43.

This is a Republican leaning district and Barack Obama's approval rating in it is only 41% with 57% of voters disapproving of him. But Democrats are far more unified than the Republicans are. Busch is winning 87-89% of the Democratic vote while Sanford (76%) and Busch (72%) are both earning less than 80% of the GOP vote. Busch is also up by 16-18 points with independent voters.

Sanford remains a strong favorite for the Republican nomination heading into next week's runoff. He leads Bostic 53/40. The horse race numbers closely mirror his favorability with GOP voters- 55% see him positively to 40% with a negative opinion.

South Carolina special a toss up

PPP's first look at the special election in South Carolina's 1st Congressional District finds a toss up race. Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch leads Republican Mark Sanford 47-45 and ties Curtis Bostic at 43.

This is a Republican leaning district and Barack Obama's approval rating in it is only 41% with 57% of voters disapproving of him. But Democrats are far more unified than the Republicans are. Busch is winning 87-89% of the Democratic vote while Sanford (76%) and Bostic (72%) are both earning less than 80% of the GOP vote. Busch is also up by 16-18 points with independent voters.

Sanford remains a strong favorite for the Republican nomination heading into next week's runoff. He leads Bostic 53/40. The horse race numbers closely mirror his favorability with GOP voters- 55% see him positively to 40% with a negative opinion. If there's a silver lining for Bostic it's that he still has a name recognition deficit- 77% of voters have heard of him to 95% for Sanford- and among voters who are familiar with him he trails Sanford only 49/46. That suggests some possibility of closing as voters focus in on the choice between the two in the final weeks, but Bostic may just not have enough time.

Haley vulnerable in South Carolina

Raleigh, N.C. – Republican Nikki Haley is losing to former Gubernatorial challenger Vincent Sheheen in PPP’s latest poll of South Carolina. Sheheen tops Haley 46-44 with 10% undecided.  Sheheen leads despite being somewhat unknown – 55% of voters have neither a favorable or unfavorable opinion of him (24% fav/21% unfav).

Haley has middling job approval ratings for an incumbent - just 42% of voters say they approve of her job performance compared to 49% who disapprove. Democrats (15/78) and Republicans (70/22) break out mostly along Party lines but the Governor suffers from the most from lack of approval among independent voters (28/57). Looking at potential matchups if Haley were to lose a primary or not to run, Sheheen leads Republican Treasurer Curtis Loftis 46-37 and leads Lieutenant Governor Glenn McConnell 44-41.

Haley trails Sheheen, Graham getting stronger

In 2010 Nikki Haley was elected Governor of South Carolina by a 51/47 margin, an uninspiring performance given the red hue of the state and what a strong year it was for Republicans nationally. Since then Haley has proven to be an unpopular Governor, and the national political climate has gotten far better for Democrats. As a result Haley now trails her 2010 Democratic opponent, Vincent Sheheen, 46/44 in a hypothetical rematch.

Sheheen is able to overcome South Carolina's GOP lean for two key reasons. He has a 51/35 advantage over Haley with independents, and he's picking up 15% of the Republican vote while losing only 10% of Democrats. Sheheen leads Haley despite having relatively low name recognition- only 45% of voters are familiar enough with him to have an opinion, suggesting some of the profile he built up in 2010 has already receded.

The good news for Haley in this poll is that she does not look terribly vulnerable to a primary challenger. In general 53% of Republicans want her to be the nominee again in 2014 to 37% who would prefer someone else. When pitted against a couple specific potential foes she's ahead by even wider margins- 58/26 against Lieutenant Governor Glenn McConnell and 66/18 against Treasurer Curtis Loftis.

Lindsey Graham has really improved his standing with Republican primary voters over the last year. In January of 2011 we found that only 37% of GOP voters would support him in a primary, compared to 52% who preferred a more conservative alternative to Graham. Since then Graham has improved a net 26 points on that measure and now leads a generic 'more conservative' foe 51/40. Graham's approval rating with Republican primary voters is a relatively healthy 66/26 spread.

When pitted against actual potential primary opponents Graham, like Haley, does even better than he does versus generic ones. He leads Tim Scott 54-32, Trey Gowdy 57-29, Mark Sanford 64-26, Mick Mulvaney 64-20, and Tom Davis 67-17.

Romney up in South Carolina

Raleigh, N.C. – Mitt Romney's taken a modest lead in South Carolina. He's at 30% there to 23% for Newt Gingrich and 19% for Rick Santorum. None of the other candidates hit double digits- Ron Paul at 9%, Rick Perry at 5%, Jon Huntsman at 4%, and Buddy Roemer at 1% round out the field.

Romney's benefiting from very strong personal favorability numbers in the state- 60% of voters see him favorably to only 29% with a negative opinion, numbers that far outstrip anything he ever posted in our Iowa polling. And he also has the most committed support out of the leading contenders. 67% of his supporters say they'll definitely vote for him, compared to only 59% of Gingrich and 44% of Santorum's voters who say that. Among 'solidly committed' voters Romney's lead expands to double digits at 37% to 26% for Gingrich and 15% for Santorum.

Romney up in South Carolina

Mitt Romney's taken a modest lead in South Carolina. He's at 30% there to 23% for Newt Gingrich and 19% for Rick Santorum. None of the other candidates hit double digits- Ron Paul at 9%, Rick Perry at 5%, Jon Huntsman at 4%, and Buddy Roemer at 1% round out the field.

Romney's benefiting from very strong personal favorability numbers in the state- 60% of voters see him favorably to only 29% with a negative opinion, numbers that far outstrip anything he ever posted in our Iowa polling. And he also has the most committed support out of the leading contenders. 67% of his supporters say they'll definitely vote for him, compared to only 59% of Gingrich and 44% of Santorum's voters who say that. Among 'solidly committed' voters Romney's lead expands to double digits at 37% to 26% for Gingrich and 15% for Santorum.

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. He edges out Romney as the candidate with the best favorability rating at 63/21. We 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 handily in such a match, 49-35.  But Santorum runs only slightly behind Romney at 45-40.

There are two things that taken together might make it possible for Santorum to upset Romney in South Carolina. The first is both Gingrich and Perry dropping out.  Gingrich's voters prefer Santorum over Romney 52-37 and Perry's do by a 54-41 margin.  Either of them dropping out would give Santorum a big boost.

The other thing that would give Santorum the potential for an upset is a Jim DeMint endorsement. 31% of voters say his nod would make them more likely to vote for a candidate.  That compares to 15% for Lindsey Graham, 14% for Nikki Haley, 13% for Mark Sanford, and 11% for John McCain. There's no doubt who has the greatest potential to be a king maker in the Palmetto State.

Thurmond most popular statewide figure in South Carolina

Raleigh, N.C. – South Carolinians are not particularly fond of their new Governor Nikki Haley, and they like her 2010 opponent Vincent Sheheen slightly better, but voters are still giving her the benefit of the doubt.  Unlike some of her controversial counterparts, like Florida’s Rick Scott and Ohio’s John Kasich, Haley is a rare governor of the 2010 Tea Party breed who has not turned voters off so much that they have buyers’ remorse.  Despite a slightly underwater 41-43 job approval rating, she would still defeat Sheheen, and by even a slightly larger margin than last fall.  She won 51-47, and would win in a do-over, 49-43, according to PPP’s latest poll.  Haley’s approval is down slightly from June, when PPP last polled the state; then voters were split 42-41 in her favor.  But the margin of the re-do question is the same (48-42 then).

The state’s senators, Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham, remain equally as popular as three months ago, with DeMint still better-liked than Graham.  DeMint’s 47-32 approval rating is almost identical to the 47-34 measured in June.  Ditto for Graham, at 41-39 now and 40-38 then.  Unsurprisingly, Graham is slightly better liked by Democrats and seen considerably better by independents than DeMint, but the junior senator is far more palatable to Republicans (73% approval, versus 53%).

South Carolina Miscellaneous

-Voters in South Carolina continue to be closely divided in their feelings about Nikki Haley, with 41% approving and 43% disapproving of her.  She's proving to have limited appeal to Democrats (an 18/71 spread), and independents split against her as well by a 35/43 margin.  She retains pretty strong support from Republicans though at a 62/20 spread so certainly her support would be helpful if she decided to endorse a GOP Presidential candidate.

Although Haley might not be very popular, voters in the state don't regret having cast their ballots for her last year.  If they could do it over again 49% say they'd support Haley to 43% who would go with her Democratic opponent Vincent Sheheen.  Those numbers are pretty similar to the actual outcome last year.  In that sense Haley's doing a lot better than many of her first term Republican colleagues in the country who voters already wish that they could push out of office.

-Lindsey Graham has seemingly tried to act more like a Republican recently and his poll numbers are reflecting that.  With GOP voters he's at a 53/32 approval spread, better than we've seen for him in a good while.  And with Democrats he's at a 25/50 breakdown, worse than we've seen for him in a good while.  Overall Graham's at 41/39.  These numbers have to be seen as good news for him.  Even if his Democratic support isn't what it has been in the past it' s still enough that he should never have to worry about losing a general election.  That means the primary is his problem and his improving numbers with the base are good news on that front.

Despite approval decline, Haley still tops Sheheen in re-do

Raleigh, N.C. – As they have become more familiar with her, South Carolina voters’ views of their new Governor Nikki Haley have slid tremendously in the last four months, but if she were to stand for election against her 2010 opponent Vincent Sheheen today, she would yet win by a slightly larger margin than she actually did last fall.  42% approve and 41% disapprove of Haley’s job performance, an 11-point decline on the margin from the 36-24 she posted when PPP last polled the state just after her inauguration.

Graham in trouble with SC GOP base, Sanford has no support

Raleigh, N.C. – With the GOP’s true believers, Senator Lindsey Graham has a reputation of being conciliatory toward the administration and working too often with Democrats and moderate Republicans.  As such, while a 45% plurality of South Carolina Republican primary voters see his views as “about right,” an almost equal 42% view him as too liberal.  Two-thirds of the state’s primary electorate label themselves conservative, and 53% of them see Graham as too liberal, while only 38% say “about right.”