South Carolina Republican Primary

Projection:

Newt Gingrich: 37.80%
Mitt Romney: 31.37%
Ron Paul: 15.43%
Rick Santorum: 14.40%

7:00pm: The polls are closed and Newt Gingrich is declared the winner.  If they were able to call the election immediately, the margin of victory must have been very large.  Likely more than 10.  There were a couple of polls this morning that showed Gingrich ahead by 14.  It's possible that the spread was even wider than that.  We'll see as the returns come in.

8:00 am 1/22/12:

The results are in and Newt Gingrich wins South Carolina.  While the totals are not final, here's how the results look so far:

Newt Gingrich: 243,153 40%
Mitt Romney: 167,279 28%
Rick Santorum: 102,055 17%
Ron Paul: 77,993 13%

Overall, I had a pretty good night.  All projections were within about 3%.  With the way the polls fluctuated so much in the last 72 hours, it is not a surprise that the projections wer slightly off.  I'm a little disappointed that I incorrectly had the order of finish for Santorum and Paul, but the race for third in the polling was relatively close throughout with Santorum picking up a little momentum in the last couple of days.

From here, we're off to Florida.  I'll have a post later today that describes where the race is right now, but that is hardly where it will be a week from now after last night's result.

South Carolina

South Carolina

9/28: 3 new polls were released showing widely different leads for Sen. McCain in South Carolina. Rasmussen shows hum ahead by as little as 6, while Survey USA has him ahead by 19. His overall lead sits at 13 points and remains safely McCain.

7/26: Daily Kos/Research 2000 released a new poll in South Carolina today that shows Sen. McCain's lead expanding. His lead grown from 8 to 9 in my projection and it is likely a poll that confirms this result will move South Carolina from a leaning McCain state to a safe one.

7/15: Public Policy Polling (D) has released a new poll in South Carolina that confirms the results of the previous 2 polls. There is little change as a result (Obama picks up about .16%) and South Carolina remains leaning toward McCain.

6/21: McCain holds a significant 8 point lead based on my projection in South Carolina. It is possible Obama may try to force McCain to spend money in South Carolina just as in North Carolina.