THE FIRE WALL HOLDS

The fire wall held for George W. Bush, as he broke the post-New Hampshire momentum of John McCain with a comfortable 11-percentage point victory in the South Carolina Republican primary Feb. 19.

State-by-State Results Page National charts and results from the states that have already voted.

But unlike his father 12 years ago, who was able to use a South Carolina triumph as a springboard to victory across the Super Tuesday South three days later, the Texas governor must demonstrate his vote-getting appeal in all parts of the country before the bulk of his home region votes in mid-March.

Bush has the resources in organization and gubernatorial support to quickly lock up the Republican nomination. But he may need to erect another fire wall in Michigan Feb. 22 before he can consider himself safely on his way to the GOP nomination. McCain’s home state of Arizona also holds a GOP primary on Tuesday, but clearly Michigan has top billing.

PREVIOUS ANALYSIS

AFTER NEW HAMPSHIRE: Two Paths Diverge… With the votes from New Hampshire tallied and in the record books, the 2000 presidential nominating campaign has moved in separate directions for the two major parties... <more...>

The Wolverine State is a major test for both Republican contenders. It is not only the first of the megastates to vote in this year’s primary season, but contains in large numbers the cities and suburbs, the blue-collar workers and white-collar professionals, that will decide the presidential election in the fall. In short, it is a bellwether of voter sentiment in the American heartland.

Bush has the enthusiastic support of the state’s Republican governor, as his father did 20 years ago when he easily beat Ronald Reagan in the Michigan primary. But in Michigan, the contest is open to all of the state’s 6.7-million registered voters, and with no Democratic contest of note, turnout for the Republican primary is virtually certain to far exceed the 600,000 that cast ballots in the GOP primary that the elder Bush won two decades ago.

Yet "W" showed in South Carolina, that he can thrive, not just survive, in a high turnout primary. Conventional wisdom before the voting Feb. 19 was that the larger the turnout, the better for McCain, given his appeal to independents and Democrats that could participate in the South Carolina’s GOP open primary. But turnout was more than double the previous high in 1996, and Bush won easily by mobilizing the Republican base.

Still, it was an election of divided loyalties.

Exit polls showed that while Bush won big among Republicans, McCain was the clear favorite of independents and Democrats, who cast roughly 40% of the 565,000 ballots in the GOP primary.

Bush had a big edge among conservatives and voters who considered themselves part of the Religious Right. McCain led among self-described moderate and liberals, and those not part of the Religious Right.

Bush and McCain split the vote of veterans, a major McCain target group that comprised almost 30% of the Republican primary vote. Bush had a big edge among non-veterans.

Bush and McCain split the vote of those born outside the state; Bush was a big favorite of native South Carolinians.

Some of this division was apparent in the actual returns. McCain won only eight of the state’s 46 counties (according to nearly complete but unofficial results), but four were along the Atlantic coast, home for large numbers of veterans and newcomers from other parts of the country. McCain swept all of the major coastal counties, from Beaufort (Hilton Head) through Charleston to Horry (Myrtle Beach) on the North Carolina border.

McCain’s strength in the "Lowcountry" gave him an 1,800-vote edge in the 1st Congressional District, represented by one of his biggest South Carolina supporters, Republican Rep. Mark Sanford.

Bush, though, swamped McCain in South Carolina’s other five districts, including the 3rd District that is represented by GOP Rep. Lindsey Graham, another big McCain backer. Graham’s district in the northwest part of the state went to Bush by 8 percentage points.

Basically, Bush won the primary by sweeping the centers of South Carolina Republicanism. He carried the eight leading Republican counties, as measured by the percentage of the vote cast for the GOP presidential ticket in 1996. Meanwhile, of the eight counties that McCain won, four voted Republican in the last presidential election and four voted Democratic.

Bush built a big lead in the conservative Republican strongholds of the "Upcountry." In Greenville County, the leading source of Republican primary votes in the state and the home of Bob Jones University, Bush swamped McCain by nearly 25 percentage points, and won by nearly as much in neighboring Spartanburg County.

Altogether, the three counties of Greenville, Spartanburg, and Lexington (with its conservative Republican suburbs outside the state capital of Columbia) provided Bush with more than half his 62,000-vote margin of victory.

Drawing only 5 percent of the primary vote, Alan Keyes did not end up being a factor in South Carolina. By and large, he ran better in conservative GOP strongholds than he did in black-majority counties. But Keyes did not come close to breaking into double digits percentagewise anywhere.