Presidential race hits SC with full force

Voters in New Hampshire have had their say. Small towns in Iowa caucused for hours to pick their presidential favorites. Now it’s time for the Palmetto State to tell the rest of the South and the nation which candidates they think are worthy of consideration to be the next president of the United States.

The field has narrowed in both parties since those early contests, yet South Carolina voters will still choose among six top Republicans seeking their party’s nomination on Feb. 20, while Democrats will decide a highly competitive two-person race between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders a week later on Feb. 27.

On the GOP side, voters will decide if Donald Trump will be the face of their party heading into November. The real-estate tycoon and reality TV star won by double-digits in New Hampshire, and has been the national frontrunner for months. If Trump maintains the 16-point lead in South Carolina recent polling says he has, a candidate who has called for Mexico to build a U.S. border wall, revoke international trade deals and ban Muslims from entering the country could build up unstoppable momentum heading into Super Tuesday on March 1.

Who could stop him? Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, the winner of the Iowa caucuses and a favorite of evangelical voters, has held a steady second place in the race for weeks, with around 19 percent of the vote in South Carolina, but will need to gain on Trump to finish first. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Ohio Gov. John Kasich are still competing to emerge as the alternative to a Trump or Cruz nomination.

One week later, Democratic voters will try to settle a surprisingly tight fight between former first lady, New York senator and secretary of state Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders, who represented Vermont in Congress for 25 years as an independent democratic socialist.

Sanders came within 0.2 percentage points of beating Clinton in the Iowa caucuses, and captured 60 percent of the vote in New Hampshire. But he has a high hurdle to jump in South Carolina, where most polls still give Clinton a 30-point lead.

Sanders has done best so far among white, self-identified liberals, but South Carolina’s Democratic electorate is majority black and has historically favored the Clintons. The Clinton campaign has considered the state her “firewall” against a Sanders challenge from the left. The Vermont senator has made efforts to reach out to black voters in the state, winning the support of some legislators and activists, but will still have a lot of ground to make up over the next two weeks.

What are some of the candidates’ views on the issues? The chart below includes some of their public comments on significant public policy issues.

This story was originally published February 13, 2016 at 5:19 PM with the headline "Presidential race hits SC with full force."