The American Research Group poll released Friday is consistent the other polls released Friday, showing a gain in support for Republican candidate Ron Paul in South Carolina.
Mr. Paul finished the poll in third place with 20 percent of the votes, drawing the majority of his support from independent voters.
Rival candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are relatively unchanged after a week that featured the release of a 28 minute movie about Mr. Romney’s days as a venture capitalist with Bain Capital.
Mr. Romney finished with 29 percent, 4 percentage points ahead of Mr. Gingrich.
The stark difference between the American Research Group poll and other polls released Friday is the decline of former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum.
In an American Research Group poll released on January 5th, Mr. Santorum was surging in South Carolina and garnered 24 percent of the votes.
However, in the ARG poll released Friday, Mr. Santorum finished with 7 percent behind Texas Governor Rick Perry. That’s surprising considering the larger presence of evangelical Christian voters in South Carolina compared to New Hampshire.
Mr. Santorum’s come from behind close second place finish in Iowa was contributed largely to his appeal to the evangelical Christian voters there. Although a big difference between Iowa and South Carolina for Mr. Santorum is that he had a much bigger on the ground presence there, as he visited all 99 counties in Iowa prior and held small town halls in unconventional settings such as living rooms and backyards.
Mr. Gingrich is actually the favorite among evangelical voters according to the ARG poll, as he finished with 40 percent of their votes. He also leads among voters who identify themselves as members of the Tea Party.
Other than the top three finishers Mr. Romney, Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Paul, none of the other candidates finished the poll with double figure percentages.
Texas Governor Rick Perry is still proving to not be a major factor in South Carolina, after many political analysts thought he could bolster support while the other candidates were focusing on courting New Hampshire voters over the last two weeks.
It will be interesting to see if Mr. Gingrich’s new Bain Capital focused approach to criticizing Mr. Romney will affect the small gap that has existed between them ever since Mr. Gingrich initially declined in mid December after surging in late November.
The former House speaker’s claim that Mr. Romney is a “Massachusetts moderate” may be having some kind of effect in South Carolina too. Among voters that identify themselves as Republicans, Mr. Gingrich is tied with Mr. Romney at 29 percent.
The ARG poll was conducted between January 11th and January 12th among 600 likely South Carolina Republican primary voters with a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
