The latest Insider Advantage poll, taken and released on Wednesday, has the South Carolina primary race looking like this:
Mitt Romney 23%
Newt Gingrich 21%
Rick Santorum 14%
Ron Paul 13%
Jon Huntsman 7%
Rick Perry 5%
The poll of likely voters shows about 17% of respondents either had no opinion, or backed an unlisted candidate.
Perry has actually slid below Huntsman? Goodbye, Governor. Texas will be glad to have you back. Romney scores considerably better in other, older polls figured into the RealClearPolitics polling average for South Carolina, with a January 4-5 poll putting him fully 18 points ahead of Gingrich, so it looks like the race might be tightening… but mostly because Romney’s going down, not because Gingrich is rising. Interestingly, Perry’s 5 percent is absolutely unanimous among all of the polls listed, while Santorum also appears to be losing ground.
Meanwhile, Rasmussen released a new Florida poll on Wednesday, also performed among likely voters, which has the Sunshine State primary looking like this:
Mitt Romney 41%
Newt Gingrich 19%
Rick Santorum 15%
Ron Paul 9%
Jon Huntsman 5%
Rick Perry 2%
That’s a huge lead in a state Gingrich was winning not more than a month ago. If Romney takes South Carolina and has a blowout in Florida, the primary endgame may well be in sight.
