Particurly since South Carolina does not have party registration, every voter is an unaffiliated who gets to chose his own primary.

that South Carolina is more than 2 weeks after Iowa--more than enough time for the numbers in SC to turn upside down. Also Florida and Michigan might be held on the same day as South Carolina.

Yes....I have never heard of the Insider Advantage group before.  When they report that they surveyed "Registered Democrats" in SC, I have to call into question their validity.  We (well, I used to live there) don't register by Party in SC.  Polls usually say "Likely Democratic Primary Voters."

That being said, this should raise HUGE alarms for Edwards.  This is the only State he won in 2004 and I see it as a must win for him in 2008.  If he's in third place, he's in trouble.

It maybe an odd sample but it helps Edwards more because likely primary voters helps Obama more since black consists of over 45% of like Democratic primary voters.

Edwards will not win South Carolina. I only want the Democrats to run a respectful campaign.

Edwards won SC last time around by 30% and won a plurity of the african american vote. It's a lot tougher this time around, but I see Hillary and Obama splitting the african american vote with Edwards keeping a good slice of their vote and taking in an overwhelming amount of the white vote for the win.

Obviously if he wins Iowa (and gets first or second in NH) it would boost Edwards in SC too.

We had our first Obama meeting in the Upstate (Greenville-Spartanburg) portion of SC last week.

The meeting was well attended and attracted a diverse crowd in terms of both age, race, and political background.

Hillary and Edwards had better bring their A game to SC if they want to be competitive with Obama.

the black vote is a big key here, as Obama is seen as really in the race to become the first black president does anyone really think when all is said and done and everyone is engaged in the primary, not just the nutcases like us, that Obama won't win an overwhelming majority of african american voters. Some black people I know thought he couldn't win before so they supported Hillary but now they see thousands of white Iowans showing up for him and know this isn't Al of Jesse this guy can win.

face to say that the black vote Obama gets would not go to Hillary because of Bill if Obama was not in the race.

Obama helps take votes and money from black wall street money bundlers... in NY

Not only that, but the 5-point is difference is about a third of the 14-point difference in the overall sample, which implies that non-blacks in SC are much more likely to pick Obama over Clinton than are blacks.  Weird poll, which I'll take as support for my feeling that '08 polls conducted in spring '07 are worthless.

Although I do expect that Obama's share of the black vote in polls will increase as the campaign goes on.

SC is going to be quite the battle between Obama and Edwards. I think Hillary will have trouble there after we push her into a distant third place in Iowa and NH. :-)

I have a feeling that this is a typo, but I haven't been able to track down a correction (if there is one to be made).

Rob I agree this is probably an outlier but so it the Gallup poll.

Where to you get that expectation 8 months out?   We have a three race.  South Carolina is just one state and this is just one poll.  

If Edwards has a strong win in Iowa and Nevada and does respectably well in NH, he doesn't need second place in SC.

But for the record, I think Edwards will place first or second in SC.

Edwards fared poorly in previous SC polls as well. NC and SC are completely different types of states. NC is part Appalachia, part coastal.

If Edwards can't carry his own state in the primary he's got no business running.

The SC primary will largely be decided by Black voters. That's why it was moved up in the process.

If Obama can't put up big numbers with Black voters he's got no business running.