South Carolina Election Results

South Carolina Election Results, Strong backing from conservative and religious voters and people fretting about the uncertain economy fueled Newt Gingrich’s victory Saturday in South Carolina’s Republican presidential primary, an exit poll of voters showed Saturday.

The figures also showed that for the first time, the former House speaker had grabbed two constituencies that his chief rival, Mitt Romney, has captured in the year’s two previous GOP contests in Iowa and New Hampshire. By slight margins, he bested Romney among voters looking for someone to defeat President Barack Obama this November, and those who considered the economy the top issue in deciding which candidate to back.

Gingrich benefited most from the campaign’s final, tumultuous week, the figures showed. Just over half said they’d chosen a candidate in the last few days, and they backed Gingrich over Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, by 2-1. By a slightly stronger margin, the roughly two-thirds who said campaign debates were an important factor also supported Gingrich. There were two GOP debates in South Carolina during the past week.

In the last days of the campaign, Romney stumbled badly when asked repeatedly whether he will release his income tax returns. Gingrich endured an allegation by one of his two former wives, Marianne, that he had asked permission for an open marriage while he was having an affair with his current wife, Callista.

That accusation seemed to take only a slight toll on Gingrich. Gingrich got less than 10 percent support from people who said what they most wanted in a candidate was strong moral character, but these voters were less than 1 in 5 of those who showed up Saturday at the polls.

In addition, Gingrich did slightly better than Romney among women, and polled a bit more strongly among married than unmarried women.

Gingrich won healthy margins among the state’s conservatives, who comprise more than 6 in 10 voters in the state. While that was bad news for Romney, it was even more damaging to Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator who has been dueling with Gingrich to become the GOP’s conservative champion and alternative to Romney.

Gingrich won among conservatives and tea party supporters by nearly 2-1 over Romney. Santorum was slightly behind.

Illustrating the sweep of Gingrich’s victory over Romney, Gingrich triumphed among all age groups. The only income group that Romney won was people making above $200,000 a year – 1 in 20 of those who voted Saturday.

Nearly two-thirds of voters Saturday said they are born again or evangelical Christians, and they backed Gingrich over Romney by 2-1 also.

More telling, 6 in 10 voters said it was important that their candidate share their religious beliefs. Nearly half of such voters backed Gingrich, while only around 1 in 5 chose Romney or Santorum.

About 8 in 10 voters said they were very worried about the direction of the country’s economy, and they picked Gingrich over Romney by about a 4-3 edge.

South Carolina Election Results

South Carolina Election Results, South Carolina elected its first woman governor Tuesday, opting for a tea party lawmaker Repubic backed to succeed scandal-stained Gov. Mark Sanford.

Nikki Haley will be the second Indian-American governor nation when replacing Sanford, whose term-limited tenure ends in January. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana is also Native American.

She won with nearly 52 percent of the vote, more than 46 state Sen. Vincent Sheehan percent to 85 percent of precincts.

Haley, a married woman 38 years of age, of two, won the support of Sarah Palin and strident campaign as a political outsider seeking to derail the vested interests in the capital of your state. She was also able to assume the unproven accusations of infidelity, questions about your finances and handwringing experience and business groups and fellow Republicans worried she will continue Sanford acrimonious relationship with the state of the leaders of the Legislature Party Republicans.

Shehan, 39 years old, a Democrat of Camden, had won numerous endorsements from newspapers and praise, even reluctantly impressed by Republican operatives to a campaign that made the contest closer than expected.

Haley, whose national profile rose quickly after their victory in four main directions, it becomes an important figure in the national political scene. South Carolina is the first southern state in the presidential primary circuit and possible 2012 Republican candidates for the White House and are beating paths through the landscape, and who donated to his campaign.

However, she inherits a bristling Legislature elbows out after eight years and castigations Sanford vetoes public, both on spending. In particular, the two factions fought after Sanford admitted an affair with a woman Argentina called his soul mate. Sanford, who has since divorced, was formally reprimanded by regulators, but resisted pressure to resign.

The son of Sikh immigrants – now Methodist – Haley grew up in rural Bamberg County and helped lead the family business, clothing, work as a bookkeeper from his adolescence. Haley’s father, who has been the traditional Sikh turban, was a professor of biology at a historically black college and his mother teaches social studies middle school.

Sheehan kept the race close. Haley raised and $ 3.9 million for the campaign and past and 3.7 million, Shehan and 3,900,000 raised and spent to 3.8 million.