South Carolina's conservative electorate gives Trump a big edge

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

86% : Trump is a huge favorite to carry the Palmetto State, leaving the final margin -- and Haley's response to it -- as the main point of interest.
68% : The 2016 Republican primary can serve as a helpful starting point for understanding where Trump's strongest -- and weakest -- areas might be.
67% : As of Thursday afternoon, Trump led Haley by almost a two-to-one margin, 64 percent to 33 percent, in 538's South Carolina polling average -- a gap three times the magnitude of Trump's New Hampshire victory.
67% : As was true in Iowa and New Hampshire, Haley has stronger support among self-identified independents than among Republicans in South Carolina, so a larger share of Republicans voting in the GOP primary should help Trump.
63% : Should the polls prove reasonably accurate, Trump could be on his way to one of the largest victories a Republican primary contender has ever enjoyed in South Carolina.
63% : The late January Monmouth University/Washington Post poll found Trump attracting support from 69 percent of white evangelicals, compared with 46 percent of other voters.
55% : Back then, Trump won by 10 points, garnering 32 percent of the vote.
54% : All of these are pluses for Trump.
54% : Beyond party identification, Trump also stands to benefit from South Carolina's larger share of conservative-minded voters.
54% : Both The Citadel and Suffolk polls found Trump at around 70 percent support there.
53% : With the future of the GOP contest at stake, here is a look at the state of play in the Palmetto State, and why Trump appears on course to claim a sizable victory on Saturday.To begin with, the primary polls give Trump a huge lead in South Carolina.
49% : Mid-February surveys from Suffolk University/USA Today and Emerson College/The Hill found Trump surpassing 70 percent among self-identified Republicans, while Haley narrowly led among independents in each poll.
46% : And Trump does best among the most conservative voters in the polls: For instance, a late January Monmouth University/Washington Post poll of South Carolina found Trump garnering 80 percent support among very conservative voters, compared with 59 percent among somewhat conservative and 33 percent among moderate/liberal voters.
46% : Haley could be competitive there, too, as the Suffolk poll found her running within a dozen points of Trump in central South Carolina.
45% : Meanwhile early February surveys from Winthrop University and The Citadel didn't separate out white evangelicals, but found Trump at 70 percent or better among evangelical Christians, compared with around 60 percent among those who didn't identify that way.
45% : Though she insists that her plan is to soldier on into March regardless of Saturday's outcome, despite trailing Trump by huge margins most everywhere, a decisive loss in her home state could change that calculus.
44% : Despite being Haley's home base, South Carolina is demographically much friendlier turf for Trump than New Hampshire.
43% : In Iowa's caucuses, where only registered Republicans could participate, the entrance poll found that Trump won a majority (54 percent) of those who identified as Republican versus a plurality (42 percent) of self-described independents.
42% : While Trump is unlikely to best Bush's 1992 record, his lead in our polling average would narrowly outshine Bush's 1988 victory margin.
42% : This is a major shift from 2016, when Trump attracted more support from less conservative voters, while Texas Sen. Ted Cruz tended to do best among those who labeled themselves very conservative.
38% : In New Hampshire, which permits unaffiliated voters to cast ballots in the party primary of their choice, the exit poll found that the two groups diverged to a much larger extent: Trump won 74 percent of the vote among Republicans while Haley won 58 percent of independents.
34% : Yet Haley would need a historically large polling misfire to even run near to Trump, much less win.
31% : Haley's campaign itself has sought to turn out voters who don't regularly participate in primaries, while groups like Primary Pivot have encouraged voters regardless of party to vote in the GOP primary to impede Trump.
16% : But while New Hampshire's primary electorate was relatively friendly to Haley (who lost to Trump by 11 percentage points in the Granite State a month ago), a more conservative and religious Republican electorate has helped buoy Trump to a much more commanding polling lead in South Carolina.
12% : An error of that size in this year's South Carolina GOP primary would barely get Haley within around 10 points of Trump, not far off her margin of defeat in New Hampshire.

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