Famous Pollster Nate Silver : It is extremely difficult but NOT totally and absolutely impossible that Rick Santorum wins in South Carolina. Santorum received the backing of a significant group of evangelical leaders of South Carolina on Saturday

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According to exit polls, 60 percent of voters in the South Carolina Republican primary identified themselves as born again or evangelical in 2008

Santorum can have a good performance in South Carolina. Nate Silver is not predicting a win, only a possible good performance of Santorum, pushed by those evangelicals that want to stop Mitt Romney.

I have great respect for Nate Silver. If he says that Rick Santorum can perform over his present poll numbers in South Carolina then we should watch the votes for this candidate in the South Carolina Republican Primary. This event will take place on Saturday, January 21 of 2012.

The New York Times
Nate Silver's Political Calculus
Backing of Evangelicals Could Resuscitate Santorum in South Carolina
By Nate Silver
Saturday, January 14, 2012


Backing of Evangelicals Could Resuscitate Santorum in South Carolina


Some excerpts :

That leaves Mr. Santorum. His favorability rating, 53 percent, was considerably better than Mr. Paul’s in the Public Policy Polling survey, and his 30 percent unfavorable rating was the lowest of any Republican candidate in the state. Like Mr. Paul, Mr. Santorum has avoided attacking Mr. Romney about Bain Capital, trying to maintain his positive image.

As The Atlantic’s Molly Ball notes, there is a parallel between the endorsement Mr. Santorum received on Saturday and the backing he received from influential conservatives like Bob Vander Plaats in the days leading up to Iowa. Those endorsements helped to break a logjam between Mr. Santorum and other conservative candidates as voters behaved tactically and jumped on his bandwagon.

The extent to which there is a consensus of voters who want to defeat Mr. Romney in South Carolina is unclear. In the Public Policy Polling survey, 58 percent of voters said they would prefer another candidate to Mr. Romney. Nevertheless, Mr. Romney led hypothetical one-on-one matchups against several Republican opponents in the poll, including against Mr. Santorum, and Mr. Romney’s favorability ratings were reasonably strong.

The scenario in which Mr. Santorum would actually win South Carolina, therefore, probably requires two things. First, Saturday’s statement would have to get voters to take another look at him at the expense of other conservatives like Mr. Gingrich or Mr. Perry. And second, the negative attacks by Mr. Gingrich would have to succeed in softening up Mr. Romney’s support, but not play to Mr. Gingrich’s direct benefit either, allowing Mr. Santorum to leapfrog both and win with perhaps 25 percent of the vote.

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