The exit-polls gave McCain the lead – the actual precinct tabulations are coming in and reflect the same thing BUT Greenville and a few key upstate communities have not come in yet. Those areas are Chuck (Norris?) full o’ Huck votes.
Grab a snack, it ain’t over yet. The McCainiacs are pumped but just like one shouldn’t count chickens before they’re hatched, one shouldn’t count the Palmetto State in the win column until the major precinct returns are tabulated.

With the results unclear as to whether he comes in 3rd or 4th in S.C. Senator Thompson, thanked South Carolina supporters and said very little about his future.
In recent days he has said he would return to Tennessee and visit with his Mom and make a decision about his future.
Parts of his remarks tonight referred to his candidacy in the past tense, but he issued forward looking challenges to the GOP on leadership and direction.

If Huckabee comes up short, it could cause southern conservatives to give Fred another look and thus give him more reasons to stay in beyond the upcoming debates and explosion of state contests on 2/5.

He will make his departure from the race official tonight.

These Southerners are not gonna let a little rain and sleet keep em away from the polls. Politics is serious business in the First In The South Primary, they are turning out!
They have been more saturated with ads and candidates for the last year than every state but NH and IA…now they want their say and rain and sleet won’t be enough to deter em.
Huckabee and McCain are in an epic getout the vote battle. Teams from all over the country, call centers, buzzing, volunteers aplenty. Both hopefuls have said they need, want, and will win here…one of em aint gonna.
South Carolina is a proud state, rich with history and fascinating politics.
Kudos to them, the state GOP, and the candidates for a great kick off to the race for the south. Dead even with 3 and a half hours left

With a win in Nevada under his belt Mitt Romney now hopes to eliminate Fred Thompson.
Thompson needs to make third and though purely anecdotal, my SC precinct sources are seeing more Mittites than Fredheads…4th could be devastating for Thompson.  Third would be a victory for Romney.

Turnout is steady in the low country and lighter in the upstate.

South Carolina Republican Party officials expect half a million votes will be cast provided the weather isn’t too lousy in the upstate.

Both Mike Huckabee and John McCain SHOULD win South Carolina. The latest American Research Group Poll taken 1/17-1/18 shows:

Huckabee 33% McCain 26% Thompson 21% Romney 9% undecided 4%

This is a huge jump for Huckabee who was in second place two days ago. AND MOST pollsters and state political pros will tell you that about 1 in 5 are undecided. I’ve found undecideds at both Huckabee and McCain events without really even trying. The McCain camp said it was looking at survey data suggesting they were breaking evenly with Huckabee among undecideds. But its tough for pollsters to catch which way undecideds break when it happens on the final day. Though I suspect the gap is not a big as what ARG has pickedup, I think my old pal pollster Dick Bennett may have found on the phone what is visible on the ground, Huckabee has buzz and his supporters have more intensity than McCain.

Huckabee and McCain teams both say it’s close. Huck’s camp is more confident- But McCainiacs say they believe McCain will withstand an acknowledged late Huck surge.

(more…)

IT’s A TIE!!!

One in five voters are undecided….McCain leads handily with military households. Huckabee leads narrowly with evangelicals who party officials say will be 6 in 10 of the half million votes expected to be cast.

With caution … McCain up by 7 pts., but that is within the margin of error … AND 19% are undecided.
27% McCain
20% Huckabee
15%Romney
11% Thompson

While Republican John McCain remains the front-runner in the South Carolina presidential primary, the outcome is up in the air as many voters are still considering their options, according to a FOX News poll released Friday.

Nearly one out of five likely Republican primary voters in South Carolina says they are unsure which candidate they will support on Saturday. Mitt Romney won the Michigan primary earlier in the week, while McCain won the New Hampshire primary and Mike Huckabee won in Iowa, leaving the Republican Party without a clear favorite.

The new FOX News poll shows McCain holds onto his lead in South Carolina by capturing the support of 27 percent followed by Huckabee at 20 percent and Romney in third with 15 percent. Fred Thompson, who was hoping to perform well in a state neighboring his home state of Tennessee, receives 11 percent, up just two points from earlier in the month.

(more…)

South Carolina:

Huck’s expanding his
populist message in every way possible hoping to enlarge his base of appeal. Every day, he attempts to get beyond Evangelicals and Christian conservatives. He has signed the “no new taxes pledge” and another pledge against amnesty for illegal immigrants. The tax pledge is late – failing to sign it before New Hampshire, where it was created, makes little sense. Signing the anti-amnesty pledge on illegal immigration may well amount to a flip-flop for a candidate who months ago was distancing himself from much of the hard line immigration rhetoric.

http://embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/01/16/huckabee-signs-no-amnesty-pledge-in-sc/

Remember before Iowa when Huckabee was the relentlessly positive candidate? Everybody loved him because of his down-home charm and unwillingness to attack his rivals. That was less than one month ago. Since then Ed Rollins and Huckabee’s consultants are getting tough.He is hitting McCain, Thompson and Romney daily.

Common Sense Issue is an independent group supporting Huckabee with push polls. Huckabee says he does not condone their push polling on his behalf but more than any other candidate Huck is the beneficiary.

Rollins adamantly denies any role:
“We have told them over and over not to do the pushpolling. I absolutely have nothing to do with it.There is absolutely no connection between me and this group. I have met Patrick Davis only once and that was years ago. There is absolutely no coordination coming from me.”

South Carolina is the most conservative state yet. Voters almost expect bare knuckle politics here. Huckabee seems more than willing to shift right and play tough. It’s still the same guy who ran in Iowa!

UPDATE:  Romney’s campaign weighed in on the push polling, saying they have received calls from over 500 people who say they have been the recipient of these calls.  (See Shushannah Walshe’s report) 

Mitt Romney is bouyant tonite as the last Michigan polls prepare to close at 9pm eastern time. He is even going back on the air in SC -briefly- with an ad. But Romney is really eyeing Nevada for his next win and will
spend at least Thursday and some of Friday there before the caucuses Saturday.

Check out Shushannah Walshe’s update.

3 to 6 inches of snow fell around Detroit overnight.
GOP officials say light turnout so far is in keeping with forecasts of about a million votes cast today in the republican primary.
In 2000 when John McCain won, 1.3 million votes were cast- 17 percent of McCain’s votes were from indies and dems.
Light turnout and weather this time could mean fewer non-GOP votes. That could be good news for Romney.
If polls are to be believed ALL the trend lines are in Romney’s direction…albeit within the margin of error.
Romney went optimistic about Michigan manufacturing job losses saying he’ll lead the recovery. Initially McCain said those jobs are not coming back, he cast Romney as pandering. It wasn’t until a couple days ago that McCain too started cheering the recovery. If Romney wins, jobs and optimism V Realism V pessimism may be seen as the defining issues.

If Romney wins, the race in many ways, will be back to the beginning.

Thinkabout it; a Romney win evens the playing field. Huck, Mac and Mitt each have a “W” going forward.

If McCain wins we’ll have an indisputable frontrunner.
AGAIN…Mitt needs Michigan…McCain needs SC.
Tactically the best way to campaign in SC is to win MI.</

A McCain win slingshots him into SC where he has basically everything on the line.
As the most experienced ’security candidate” if McCain can’t win in SC where the military population is the nations highest per capita,,where (besides NH and AZ) might he win?
Conversely if Mitt can’t win in his home state, well, uh, what then?