SC poll: Carson unhurt by controversies

The negative media scrutiny over Ben Carson’s life story is not harming his popularity, with the retired neurosurgeon buoyant in a new poll, and South Carolinians declaring they do not care about the controversies. 

{mosads}Whether it is his scholarship offer to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, his unusual theory about pyramids, or his stories about being an angry and violent youth, South Carolina Republican voters remain untroubled, says a new survey by the liberal-leaning firm Public Policy Polling (PPP). 

Carson holds his second place in the GOP field in S.C. with 21 percent of the vote — exactly where he stood in the September survey — placing him close behind billionaire front-runner Donald Trump, who has faded from 37 percent in the September poll to 25 percent in November. 

Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) are the only candidates to surge in the new poll, with Cruz now in third at 15 percent and Rubio a narrow fourth at 13 percent. Both senators have jumped 9 percentage points since PPP’s September poll. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush receives just 8 percent. 

When GOP primary voters in S.C. were asked about Carson’s recent controversies, 65 percent told the pollsters that his violent youth — “including stabbing a friend and trying to hit his mother over the head with a hammer” — makes no difference to them one way or another. Nine percent said Carson’s violent youth would make them more likely to vote for him and only 22 percent said it would make them less likely. 

Voters overwhelmingly disagree with Carson’s theory that pyramids were built to store grain but it is not an issue that is costing him support, PPP adds. 

“Donald Trump’s still up in South Carolina,” said Dean Debnam, president of PPP. “But he’s on the down swing when it comes to every metric that we use to measure his candidacy’s strength.

“Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are the candidates with momentum now, and Ben Carson isn’t being negatively affected by all the controversy with his campaign last week.” 

On the Democratic side, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is struggling to make any impression on South Carolina voters. Front-runner Hillary Clinton is still crushing him in South Carolina, winning support from 72 percent of Democratic primary voters to Sanders’s 18 percent, PPP says. 

In the September poll, Clinton led Sanders 66 percent to 12 percent when Vice President Joe Biden was removed from calculations, so the pollsters point out that her 54-point advantage over Sanders holds steady. 

“Hillary Clinton’s long been dominant in South Carolina,” Debnam said. 

“That made Friday’s MSNBC forum [hosted by Rachel Maddow] an important chance for Bernie Sanders and [former Gov.] Martin O’Malley [D-Md.] to change that. But instead it just reaffirmed Clinton’s overwhelming front-runner status in the state.” 

Clinton’s biggest advantage over Sanders — and this is a weakness that is troubling the Sanders camp — is her popularity with African-American voters. 

While Sanders has a good chance to win the early-voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire — they are predominantly white electorates receptive to his revolutionary brand of progressivism — Sanders will face his first test with black voters in the S.C. primary. The PPP poll shows Clinton winning 86 percent of South Carolina’s African-American vote to 11 percent for Sanders. 

O’Malley wins just 1 percent of the black vote and 5 percent overall in S.C., PPP says.

PPP surveyed 787 usual Republican primary voters and 400 usual Democratic primary voters on Nov. 7 and Nov. 8.  The margin of error for the Republicans is 3.5 percent and 4.9 percent for the Democrats.