Telephone Survey Shows Good News For Lindsey Graham and Jeb Bush
Human Events and Gravis Marketing conducted a random telephone survey of 735 registered South Carolina voters regarding current events, including potential presidential and senate candidates between March 6 and March 7 2014. The poll was conducted by automated telephone interviews on landline telephone numbers. The poll carries a margin of error of 4%. A previous poll was conducted in on the same subject by Gravis Marketing in South Carolina in late 2013.
Among potential Republican presidential nominees, Jeb Bush holds a slight advantage among Republican voters at 24% in the latest telephone survey, followed by Mike Huckabee at 20%. All candidates are close, with no clear front-runner having emerged. When compared to the previous poll conducted in the state Chris Christie has dropped favor among all voters since the November 2013 poll. The remaining members of the field such as Rubio, Cruz and Paul continue to lose ground to Bush.
Mike Huckabee has remained in lock step with Bush among all voters in the telephone survey keeping his rival close only trailing by 2- percentage points.
Lastly, it appears from these results that the Tea Party has lost some traction among those polled. 19% of all voters polled in South Carolina indicated that they were undecided as to whom they would support for the Republic presidential nomination. When voters were asked, “Would you support a “Tea Party” challenger to Senator Graham?” have shifted further away from an affinity for a tea Party challenger with 39% stating they would in November 2013 to 32%
Sen. Lindsey Graham has gained considerable ground on Jim DeMint surpassing him in the polls among all voters by a 2-percentage point margin. This advantage comes in the wake of the Senator overcoming an 11% advantage held by DeMint in a previous poll conducted in November 2013. Respondents are about evenly split between Jim DeMint to Senator Lindsey Graham (46% to 43% among Republican voters and 44% to 42% among all voters). Sen Graham also holds a 50% margin over Lee Bright.
The telephone survey also found widespread disapproval of Obamacare and increasing the debt limit.
Q1: If the election for Republican presidential primary were held today, whom would you vote for: Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Rick Santorum or Scott Walker?
Q2: If the Republican primary were held today for US Senate, whom would you vote for: Lindsey Graham or Jim DeMint?
Q3: If the Republican primary were held today for US Senate, whom would you vote for: Lindsey Graham, Lee Bright, Richard Cash, Nancy Mace or Bill Connor?
Q4: Would you support a “Tea Party” challenger to Senator Graham?
Q5: Do you support drug testing for welfare benefits, including food stamps?
Q6: Should Senator Graham vote to defund Obamacare?
Q7: Should Senator Graham vote to raise the federal debt limit?
Note: the polls were conducted using automated IVR software, Gravis used current voter lists provided by the state of South Carolina to conduct the telephone survey. Prior Human Events/ Gravis Marketing poll
