Columbia, S.C. -- Polls here remain open for another three hours in today's Republican presidential primary but there are already signs that turnout is strong.
In the city of Anderson, an Upstate Republican stronghold, the Independent Mail newspaper reported that some voters were waiting more than an hour to cast ballots. The paper noted:
Voters at McCants Middle School in Anderson were particularly angry, with many saying they had waited in line up to an hour and 45 minutes to cast their ballots.
The State Election Commission, the agency in charge of running the statewide vote, said turnout appears strong but that it's too early to tell if turnout will break the record of 603,770 ballots cast in the 2012 primary, reports The State newspaper. But, one thing is already clear:
One important sign is that as of early Saturday afternoon, 58,464 absentee ballots had already been cast in the GOP contest, (commission spokesman Chris) Whitmire said. That alone shatters the previous state record of 35,595 absentee ballots, including both the Democratic and Republican primaries, in 2008.
Meanwhile, CBS News reports that there are signs of Trump's support softening here in the final hours.
The network says that its Feb. 10-12 poll of S.C. Republicans found Donald Trump with 42 percent, Ted Cruz with 20, Marco Rubio in third with 15 percent, John Kasich at 9 and Jeb Bush at 6 percent.
The network and its polling partner, YouGov, re-contacted 262 of those polled on Friday and the results showed that 16 percent of former Trump supporters now plan to vote for someone else.
The network was careful to say re-survey includes a small sample size, which makes it difficult to claim a scientific report. But, if the new survey was extrapolated into actual results, Trump's support would drop to 36 percent -- still far ahead of second place Cruz, who is neck-and-neck with Rubio at 22 percent and 21 percent, respectively. Kasich falls to 8 percent and Bush 4 percent.
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