Graham widens lead in new SC Senate poll as Supreme Court confirmation hearings begin
As Supreme Court confirmation hearings are underway, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham’s lead over Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison grew to six points in the latest Morning Consult Poll released on Tuesday.
Graham had a 48% to 42% lead in a poll conducted between Oct. 2 and Oct. 11 of 903 likely South Carolina voters.
That is a larger margin than a Morning Consult poll released on Sept. 22 where Graham led 46%-45%.
In recent weeks Graham, who is the Judiciary Committee chairman, has pushed forward with confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. Confirmation hearings started on Monday. A CBS News/You Gov poll in September found that 54% of South Carolinians wanted Republicans to move forward with filling the vacancy left by Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death before the Nov. 3 election.
Other recent polls in the race have Graham and Harrison tied or the two candidates within a one or two points of each other.
Those close polls led to the Cook Political Report giving the race a toss-up rating in the traditionally Republican state.
In Tuesday’s Morning Consult poll, President Donald Trump had a 12-point lead over former Vice President Joe Biden in South Carolina.
The poll’s margin of error was plus or minus 3.3 percentage points. FiveThirtyEight gives Morning Consult a B/C rating for its online polls.
This story was originally published October 13, 2020 at 8:41 AM.
