Not quite, according to the latest ARG poll. But he’s running only four points behind Romney, 25 percent to 29 percent. And here’s the thing. According to ARG, Gingrich enjoys the support of 40 percent of the GOP evangelical vote. Now if evangelicals turn out at the rate they did in 2008–60 percent of GOP primary voters–that would equate to 24 percent of the total. I refuse to believe that Newt is winning only two or three percent of non-evangelicals. Which means that ARG may be significantly underestimating evangelical turnout.
As for Romney, his evangelical support is now at 13 per cent, just two points higher than it was in 2008, when he finished fourth (behind McCain, Huckabee, and Thompson) with 15 percent. No doubt, he’s now picking up a lot of that McCain non-evangelical support. But McCain eked out a three point victory (33-30) over Huckabee with 27 percent evangelical support. (Huckabee had 43 percent.) And Romney’s nowhere near 27 percent. So as I say, Gingrich may well be winning SC right now.
