Nate Silver: Polls Show Gains For Romney — But Not in South Carolina

I wrote on Wednesday that I expected Mitt Romney to expand his modest lead in the South Carolina polls once his victory in New Hampshire was reflected in the surveys there.

Instead, the first poll of the state after New Hampshire suggests just the opposite and shows Mr. Romney’s lead contracting in South Carolina, although I would urge a lot of caution in interpreting it.

The poll, an automated survey from InsiderAdvantage, was conducted on Wednesday and shows Mr. Romney with 23 percent of the vote, just 2 points ahead of Newt Gingrich at 21 percent. The poll has Rick Santorum and Ron Paul tied for third place at 13 percent, with Jon M. Huntsman Jr. having moved ahead of Rick Perry for fifth place.

Our forecast model is designed to weight polls from after New Hampshire much more heavily than those conducted before it. It also accounts for momentum and calculates that Mr. Romney’s is negative based on this survey. In fact, Mr. Romney’s numbers have been on a decline in South Carolina following an initial “bounce” after his strong showing in the Iowa caucuses.

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Link: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/polls-show-gains-for-romney-but-not-in-south-carolina/

This article is a bit of a continuation and an update of the analysis to the article I posted in this thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251827