South Carolina Polls: Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton Widen Leads As Primary Nears

After Iowa and New Hampshire, South Carolina is next up in the 2016 presidential election race and the primary is now less than a week away. As time draws near, it seems almost too obvious who is going to take the state, and that’s for both parties. Donald Trump’s leading in the South Carolina polls is getting bigger by the day, while Hillary Clinton has an incredibly commanding lead on Bernie Sanders in the Democratic race.

Now, there are actually a number of polls that are currently out there, and while some could differ vastly from the other, most of them tell almost exactly the same thing. That is of huge leads for Trump in the race for the Republican party nomination and Clinton on the opposing side.

CBS News has reported that their Battleground Tracker has Trump with a gigantic lead as of early this week. Due to conservatives and a huge amount of evangelical voters, the large share of the electorate in South Carolina is favoring Trump over Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and others.

• Donald Trump – 42 percent
• Ted Cruz – 20 percent
• Marco Rubio – 15 percent
• John Kasich – 9 percent
• Jeb Bush – 6 percent
• Ben Carson – 6 percent

Yes, Ted Cruz is in second place, but he’s incredibly far behind Trump. Anything is possible and could happen by the time the primary takes place on Feb. 20, but that lead is huge. It’s not helping any other candidates that possible voters who weren’t totally sure on Trump a month or two ago are now giving him their full support.

On the Democratic side of things, CBS News also has the race not being a close one in the South Carolina polls. Hillary Clinton is currently way ahead of Sanders with a lead of 59 percent to 40 percent, and it seems like time is running out.

The Hill reports that Sanders is beginning to narrow the gap on Clinton’s lead in South Carolina, but it may be too little too late. One month ago, Clinton’s lead was 22 points and it is down now to 19, but that may not be enough time for him to overtake her before this weekend.

Now, not all polls are looking at things the same way. Sure, there may usually be a little change here and there, but one poll being reported by Fox News‘ Howard Kurtz has things entirely different and says the Republican race is much closer.

An internal poll for the Jeb Bush supporting Super PAC Right to Rise still has Donald Trump on top, but has Ted Cruz a mere two points behind him.

• Donald Trump – 26 percent
• Ted Cruz – 24 percent
• Jeb Bush – 12 percent
• Marco Rubio – 11 percent

Doubters immediately jumped on these South Carolina poll results and all over Fox News as well.

.@HowardKurtz @FoxNews refuses to cite Online Polls where Trump Dominates, yet you post a Bush PAC Poll? #HYPOCRISY pic.twitter.com/dnBpjhyM5G

— The Majority Awakens (@DefendingtheUSA) February 15, 2016

As usual, internal poll results should always be taken with a grain of salt and this one actually is not even close to the results of the others. Real Clear Politics reports that Donald Trump has a whopping 20 point lead on Cruz and Rubio is even further behind, as is Jeb Bush.

South Carolina is going to tell a lot about the upcoming primaries, but it looks as if things may already be close to decided with five days to go.

The South Carolina polls are overly uneven right now, and it seems as if the next primary may be in the bag for Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Then again, stranger things have happened and these polls are merely preliminary so when all voters come out, it could end up with a totally different result.

[Image by Alex Wong/Getty Images]