Clinton, Trump Hold Strong Leads In South Carolina Polls

Heading into the South Carolina primaries, both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are holding strong double-digit leads that have remained unchanged throughout the race.

The most recent poll has Trump leading the GOP field with 35 percent support, followed by Sens. [crscore]Ted Cruz[/crscore] and [crscore]Marco Rubio[/crscore] at 18 percent. In the same poll, Clinton leads Sen. Bernie Sanders 55 percent to 34 percent.

Since entering the race Trump has maintained a strong double digit lead in the Palmetto State, except in early November when Carson surged. Hillary has led the Democratic field in South Carolina ever since polling started in October of 2015 with a margin ranging from 20 to over 40 percent of support. Much of this is due to her “Southern firewall,” i.e: strong support among black voters. In Tuesday’s PPP poll, Clinton led Sanders among black voters with 63 percent — Bernie only received 23 percent of that support.

Only 39 percent of black voters view Sanders favorably, 71 percent feel the same about Hillary. The Democrats go to the polls in South Carolina on February 27, after the Nevada caucuses. What happens there is more than likely to effect results in the Palmetto State. (RELATED: MSNBC Talks With Black Voters In SC, Can’t Find Hillary Supporters)

The GOP on the other hand has their primary this Saturday and its in the second and third place spots where polling is much tighter. Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, John Kasich and Jeb Bush are all in contention for these spots. While Cruz has long been holding the second place spot in polling, recent polls have had Kasich, Rubio, and Bush all either in second or a point away.

Tuesday’s poll showed that despite Cruz’s strong push in the South, he has the worst net favorability of all the candidates, 42 percent favorable, 48 percent not. Jeb Bush is the only other candidate with a net negative favorability, at negative 2 percent. GOP frontrunner Donald Trump is the fourth most liked 50/43 and Carson is viewed the best by South Carolina voters with 68 percent favorability.

Jeb is certainly counting on his brother’s popularity and Trump’s recent attacks on the Iraq War to propel him forward, President George W. Bush is viewed favorably by 64 percent of Palmetto State Republicans.

Interestingly, though, among voters who like George W. Bush, Trump still leads with 26 percent, Jeb gets 10 percent. (RELATED: George W. Bush Gives Anti-Trump Speech: “The Strongest Person Isn’t Usually The Loudest One’)