Mike Huckabee leads South Carolina Primary Poll, comes in second if Jim DeMint runs

Public Policy Polling

South Carolina Republican 2012 Primary

Mike Huckabee 26% [19%]

Mitt Romney 20% [24%]

Sarah Palin 18% [22%]

Newt Gingrich 13% [25%]

Ron Paul 7% [7%]

Tim Pawlenty 4%

Mitch Daniels 3%

John Thune 2%.

Someone else/Undecided 8%

If Jim DeMint runs:

DeMint 24%  [29%]

Huckabee 20%  [15%]

Romney 17%  [16%]

Palin 12%  [15%]

Newt 10%  [16%]

Paul 4%  [7%]

Pawlenty 3%

Daniels 2%

Someone else/Undecided 8%

Favorability

* Jim DeMint 77%/12%   {+65%}

* Mike Huckabee 72% / 16%  {+56%}

* Mitt Romney 60% / 22%  {+38%}

* Sarah Palin 61% / 28%  {+33%}

* Newt Gingrich 54% / 25%  {+29%}

* Ron Paul 47%/19%  {+28%}

PPP surveyed 559 South Carolina Republican primary voters from January 28th to 30th.

The survey’s margin of error is +/-4.1%.

[ ] denotes data from May 2010

PPP Twitter/Blogspot Nuggets:

Pretty much all of our 2012 GOP polling so far this year has been good for Huckabee. We'll see if he takes advantage of it.

Huck ahead with both Republicans who think party's too liberal and ones who think it's about right.

Not winning South Carolina in 2008 punctured Huckabee's chances at winning the nomination but it looks like he'd be able to change that outcome if he gave it a second try.

The Republican Party has seen considerable division over the last year about whether the party should be more conservative or if its current ideological bent is acceptable. The key to Huckabee's success is that he's the leader with voters who fall into both of those camps.