Wednesday, January 18, 2012

South Carolina???s Demographics Will Shape GOP Primary (ContributorNetwork)

South Carolina's presidential preference primary will be held Saturday as five mainstream GOP candidates square off to try to win their party's nomination for president. South Carolina's demographics are much different than Iowa and New Hampshire, sites of the previous two nominating contests.

Here's a look at the demographic makeup of the Palmetto State as it relates to voters in South Carolina.

* South Carolina has a population of 4.625 million residents. Three-fourths of them are of voting age, according to the U.S. Census .

* As of Jan. 1, more than 2.7 million voters were registered in South Carolina. About 78 percent of the state's eligible population is registered to vote.

* South Carolina has 46 counties, as compared to 99 for Iowa and 10 for New Hampshire. In terms of total population, Iowa has just more than 3 million people and New Hampshire has 1.3 million . South Carolina has more people and voters than Iowa and New Hampshire combined.

* The economy is going to be a larger issue in South Carolina than in other states. As of November, South Carolina's unemployment rate was the eighth-worst in the U.S. at 9.9 percent. Contrarily, New Hampshire and Iowa were fourth and sixth best in November. New Hampshire's unemployment rate was 5.2 percent last fall while Iowa was just 5.7 percent.

* In terms of ethnic background, South Carolina is much more diverse than Iowa and New Hampshire. Sixty-six percent of residents identify themselves as white in South Carolina. In Iowa, that rate increases to 91 percent. In New Hampshire, that demographic is 94 percent.

* The largest minority group in South Carolina is black, with nearly 28 percent of the population identifying themselves as that ethnicity. Over the entire U.S. just 12.6 percent of residents are black.

*The county with the highest unemployment rate in South Carolina is Marion at 17.3 percent. Lexington County has the lowest unemployment rate at 7 percent, according to the Associated Press .

* Since 1980, the South Carolina primary has had the uncanny ability to choose the overall GOP nominee when the race is contested. Every single winner of the South Carolina Republican primary since it began 32 years ago has gone on to win the nationwide nomination.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20120116/pl_ac/10841871_south_carolinas_demographics_will_shape_gop_primary

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