Graham in Hot Water

South Carolina Republicans are ready to give Lindsey Graham the boot. The good news for him is that they can't do it for another four years.

57% of likely voters for next week's Gubernatorial primary in the state say they would vote for a more conservative alternative to Graham the next time he is up for reelection compared to only 32% who say they would vote to renominate him.

It's clear that Graham has in particular alienated the conservative base of his party in the state. Moderate Republicans say they would vote to keep Graham by a 57-24 margin but conservatives ones are even stronger in their desire to dump him, saying by a 68-23 spread they'd like to replace him.

Graham's overall approval with Republican voters is 40% with 45% of them disapproving of him. To put those numbers in context Arlen Specter and Blanche Lincoln both still had positive approval ratings within their own parties as they failed to win their respective primaries two weeks ago.

53% of GOP voters think Graham is too liberal to 41% who think he's about right and 6% who aren't sure.

The immediate relevance of these numbers is limited but when you look at these and the ones we found for Olympia Snowe late last year the message gets clearer and clearer- Republican Senators cooperate with Democrats at their own peril.

Full results here