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InsiderAdvantage/Majority Opinion Poll: Dead Heat…But it depends on what style of polling you like.

January 18, 2008 — With the weather threatening and the campaign reaching a frenzied pace, the latest InsiderAdvantage/ Majority Opinion poll of the Republican Primary in South Carolina shows John McCain and Mike Huckabee locked in a neck-and-neck race with 26% of the vote each.  

The following is InsiderAdvantage/Majority Opinion’s official poll conducted Thursday night (Jan 18). 

Huckabee: 26%
McCain: 26%
Romney: 13%
Thompson: 13%
Giuliani: 5%
Paul: 5%
Hunter: 2%
Undecided: 10% 

The survey of 635 registered likely Republican voters in South Carolina was weighted for age, race, gender and political affiliation. The margin of error in this poll is plus-or-minus 3.8%.  

“This survey was conducted by the same proprietary automated system InsiderAdvantage used successfully to poll the Iowa caucus,” said InsiderAdvantage CEO Matt Towery. 

“However, because of the extremely close nature of this poll, we also concurrently used phone room poll as a check on our results. Live phone room results have become increasingly less reliable over the years. Nevertheless, here were the results of the phone room survey, using the exact same weights, with a sample size of 300 and a margin of error of plus-or-minus 6 percent: 

McCain: 34%
Huckabee: 21%
Thompson: 15%
Romney: 14%
Giuliani: 3%
Paul: 1%
Undecided: 12% 

Lee Bandy, the 40-year veteran political columnist for The State newspaper in Columbia, and now a part of the InsiderAdvantage/Southern Political Report team, said he believes that McCain and Huckabee are tied. 

With the forecast for rain and snow in much of the state Saturday, Bandy believes the turnout edge goes to Huckabee. “I believe that benefits Huckabee because his voters are more passionate and will turn out come hell or high water,” said Bandy. 

Towery warns a bit of caution however: “The tracking numbers using our automated system on Wednesday night showed Huckabee 5 points up on McCain. These samples are large and can measure slight movements in opinion. The fact that McCain evened things up with Huckabee tells me that tonight’s poll will be very important. McCain may be regaining some momentum.”