Late Poll Shows Newt Gingrich with a 9 Point Lead in South Carolina as Primary Voting Begins

Public Policy Polling (PPP) came in late last night with their final poll for the GOP South Carolina Primary, and it shows Newt Gingrich with a 9-point lead over Mitt Romney 37%-28%. Rick Santorum is a distant third at 16%, with Ron Paul at 14%.

The final day of polling in this PPP survey had Gingrich up 40%-26%. Our 3-day average of polls in South Carolina has Gingrich with a 4.7 point lead over Mitt Romney. The momentum clearly seems to be with Newt, as he has been in the lead in the last 7 polls out of South Carolina. I don’t know if we will get any more polls this morning on South Carolina or not. If we do, we’ll post them and add them to the average.

UPDATE 12:52 PM ET - ARG is out with a final poll showing Gingrich with a 14 point lead.