A group called State Tea Party Express paid for the ad below, which has been running on FOX, linking Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) and Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), who's running for president. Walker was embroiled in a budget controversy over state-workers’ collective-bargaining rights -- and saw a standoff in which all of the state’s Democratic senators fled Wisconsin.

*** UPDATE *** State Tea Party Express, the group running the ads, is classified as a 501(c)(4) organizations, which are classified as social welfare groups dedicated to charitable or educational purposes. They are different from political action committees because they are not required to disclose donors and less than half of their money must be spent for non-political purposes.

The group appears to be affiliated with the Tea Party Express. The two groups bear a similar masthead and list the same six guiding principles on both of their websites.

Calls to both groups were not immediately returned.

Rick Santorum's on the radio in Iowa with an ad hitting both Rick Perry and Mitt Romney, the Washington Post's Blake reports. The Santorum campaign is spending about $30,000 on the ad.

Listen to it here.

Script below:

"This is Rick Santorum, and if you've watched the presidential debates, you know we're not shy about disagreeing. Mitt Romney and I disagree on his government-run RomneyCare. I think Rick Perry is dead-wrong about giving , and I thought the Wall Street bailouts were a terrible idea, while Herman Cain strongly supports the bailouts, but we all agree on one thing: Barack Obama has to go, and if there's anything we've learned from his failed presidency, it's that experience matters. That's why I hope you'll visit RickSantorum.com, and learn about how I successfully led the fight to reform welfare, my critical foreign policy experience, having served eight years on the armed services committee, and how I ended partial birth abortions in America."

Rick Perry's campaign went up today with a highly produced Web video hitting Mitt Romney on health care.

Ben Smith points out that Romney's gubernatorial portrait features his Massachusetts health-care plan. It's that folder to his left on the desk:

Alex Moe/NBC News

Gov. Rick Perry speaks to a crowd gathered in Orange City, Iowa on Saturday.

SPENCER, Iowa -- Texas Gov. Rick Perry made his way for the first time to the most conservative part of the state this weekend, making three stops in the crucial Northwest Iowa region.

More than 100 Iowans greeted the governor and First Lady of Texas, Anita, cramming into rooms barely large enough to accommodate the size of the crowds.

“Western Iowa is Republican country,” Perry told those in attendance at McCarthy and Bailey’s Irish Pub in Sioux City.

Although fellow GOP presidential contenders Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul, and Newt Gingrich have held a fair share of events in that region of the Hawkeye State, this was Perry’s first trip. A trip many say was long overdue.

“We’ve been wondering why Perry hasn’t been here,” Joyce Browne of Sioux City, Iowa said noting there were a lot of votes to be won up here.

Many of the caucus-goers in attendance at Saturday’s events had not chosen a candidate to support and wanted to come see what Perry, who has been falling in the polls recently, had to say in person.

Pete Pals from Orange City, Iowa came with his wife to the Blue Mountain Culinary Emporium because he has no preference on a candidate yet. “I’m here to get a feel for Gov. Perry and I think all things being equal, I will support the Republican nominee, whoever gets it,” he said.

“I like to hear form the candidates so we can make wise decisions rather than listen to the media and have them tell me who to vote for,” Lillian Green of Boyden, Iowa said. “At this moment, I think I would have a very good tendency to vote for Mr. Perry.”

The presidential hopeful gave very similar and rather brief speeches to all the groups he spoke with, touting his record on jobs in Texas and promising to draw a bright line between himself and President Obama.

“I'm not an M.D., but I have a Ph.D. in job creation, that's what America is looking for,” Perry told the crowd at the Pizza Ranch in Spencer.

State Sen. David Johnson decided to endorse Perry instead of Mitt Romney this time around because of their records.

“I went for Romney in 2008 and he did fairly well up here but this time around it is about jobs, the economy, our tax structure,” Sen. Johnson said. “I looked at his [Perry] record in Texas and it convinced me that he was the best one to back.”

Although he did not take questions from reporters, he allowed time for a question and answer session with Iowans following each speech. Voters questioned Perry’s stance on immigration, specifically tuition for illegal immigrants.

Perry said the federal government put Texas in a hard position: “Are we going to kick these people to the side of the road and let them become tax wasters? Or are we going to give them the opportunity to go to an institution of higher learning, pay full in-state tuition, which we do, and require them pursue citizenship?

“We wanted to make tax payers not tax wasters,” he promised.

Anita Perry spent much of her time in Iowa last week clarifying this same issue to Iowans. She contended that her husband was not given ample time in debates to respond to criticisms of his stance and said he is committed to stopping the tide of illegal immigration.

One attendee in Spencer also asked Perry what he thought about how certain pundits refer to him and whether he would have "his whole party's support" if he became the nominee.

"I think Americans are looking for a president that will look them right in the eye and tell them the truth," Perry said. "I think they want a president who has the record of job creation. I think they want somebody that's not about rhetoric but that's about record."

Perry’s Iowa State Chairman Bob Haus told NBC News that this was a "great" trip for the governor and he would be back to Northwest often.

“I think this is the kind of stuff that helps you do well in the caucuses,” Haus said. “When you are talking to people one-on-one, and you’re telling them your vision and your side of the story and converting people to supporters.”

Johnson could not emphasize enough how important the region would be for Perry.

“There is a lot more territory up here to be covered to make those personal visits,” he said. “You’ve got to come back over and over again.”

AP

Rep. Michele Bachmann (left) and Texas Gov. Rick Perry (right)

DES MOINES, Iowa -- With the 2012 presidential campaign well underway here, the first-in-the-nation caucus state, the top tier Republican candidates have largely ignored a crucial part of the state: the Northwest quadrant.

“There is not a more important region in Iowa than the Northwest counties,” a GOP strategist tells First Read. “While making up just a quarter of the state, they have an enormous, out-sized say in who will win Iowa.”

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, the supposed frontrunner, and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, the winner of the Ames Straw Poll in August, have focused their campaigns thus far in the center of the state -- only a short radius from the capital city. Bachmann has only held four of her more than 70 events in the state in the Northwest, while Perry has yet to visit the region at all.

“Sometimes campaigns get a little bit lazy, and they skip the edges, but there’s an awful lot of votes in Northwest Iowa,” former Iowa GOP Chairman and CEO of Victory Enterprises Steve Grubbs admitted.

While former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has ignored Iowa all together, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, Texas Congressmen Ron Paul, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain have spent considerable amounts of time in the Northwest counties. Santorum, according to the Des Moines Register’s candidate tracker, has held 46 events in the region.

"Sen. Santorum is connecting well with Northwest Iowa voters, because he is speaking to the issues that they care most deeply about," said Jamie Johnson, state coalitions director for Santorum's campaign. "People appreciate his authenticity."

With Gingrich and Paul both making campaign stops in Sioux City last week, many Republicans heavily involved in the caucus process are surprised Perry and Bachmann are not trying to capitalize on the voters there yet.

“There is a goldmine of votes in Northwest Iowa,” a Republican strategist said, “and the GOP candidates had better get serious about campaigning there soon, or risk losing vital votes in Northwest Iowa.

“Northwest Iowa is a strongly conservative, evangelical, and heavily Republican area,” Dennis Goldford, a political science professor at Drake University, pointed out. There are not only more Republicans than Democrats in that area, Goldford said, but also more Republicans than independents. Registered independents outnumber both registered Democrats and Republicans statewide.

“Western Iowa, in general, and Northwest Iowa, in particular, have always played an important role in the Republican precinct caucuses, and that will be just as true in 2012,” admits Eric Woolson, Bachmann’s Iowa communications director and former Mike Huckabee aide.

The Northwestern part of the Hawkeye State has proved to be a key area for Republicans in recent elections. Both the 2008 caucus winner, Huckabee, and the 2010 gubernatorial winner, Terry Branstad, posted large turnout numbers in the counties in the most conservative part of the state.

“Gov. Huckabee was very popular in Northwest Iowa and had strong support in the area,” Woolson said.

Why then, if the Northwest region helped propel Huckabee ahead of Romney, who spent the most in the state, are Perry and Bachmann not spending more time there?

David Yepsen, the longtime political writer for The Des Moines Register and now a professor at Southern Illinois University, says expect to see more of an emphasis in the region this fall.

“The race hasn’t gelled enough,” Yepsen said. “It may be the campaigns are still trying to figure out: (1) what the calendar is, (2) what the field is, and (3) how to play it. It’s amazing how fluid it is this close to caucus night. As we get closer to the date, you’ll see more effort being expended there.”

Perry’s Iowa Chairman Bob Haus, said the governor would be putting a focus on the Northwest counties moving forward.

“There are big Republican population areas up there,” he said, “but there is also just a lot of conservative activists that I think Gov. Perry would appeal to in terms of his philosophy and stance on the issue.”

As for the Bachmann strategy, Woolson said, the congresswoman “will be devoting quite a bit of time to campaigning in Northwest Iowa as we go forward to caucus night."

Bachmann, in fact, heads to the region Monday, and Perry makes his first trip there next weekend.

Gov. Rick Perry's team pushed back Sunday on a Washington Post story charging that a racial epithet was displayed for decades on a hunting property leased by the Texas governor's family.

Perry's team says that the governor's father Ray painted over the name -- a holdover from the area's long cowboy culture -- in the early 1980s. That conflicts with the account of a total of seven sources -- who spoke on the condition of anonymity -- who told the Post that the offensive name of the hunting grounds was written on a flat slab of rock at the entrance to the property and was visible during the 1980s and 1990s when Perry launched his political career. One source said the word could be seen as late as 2008.

In a response to First Read, Perry Communications Director Ray Sullivan disputed the accuracy of those accounts.

"The rock was obscured in 1983 or 1984 and remained so," he said. "Named interviewees in the story corroborate that. The story has no named sources seeing the name on the rock in later 80s and 90s claim and those unnamed sources contradict one another."

Sullivan said Perry's last visit to the property was in December 2006 and that he stopped leasing it in 2007. The Perry campaign says the story's suggestion that Perry brought guests to the property when the offensive language was visible is also false. 

Full statement follows:

"A number of claims made in the story are incorrect, inconsistent, and anonymous, including the implication that Rick Perry brought groups to the lease when the word on the rock was still visible.  The one consistent fact in the story is that the word on a rock was painted over and obscured many years ago. Governor Perry and his family never owned, controlled or managed the property referenced in the Washington Post story.  The 42,000-acre ranch is owned by the Hendricks Home for Children, a West Texas charity.

"Perry’s father painted over offensive language on a rock soon after leasing the 1,000-acre parcel in the early 1980s. When Governor Perry was party to the hunting lease from 1997 to 2007, the property was described as northern pasture. He has not been to the property since 2006. In 1991 the Texas Legislature passed a bill to rename old, offensive place names."

DES MOINES, Iowa –- Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz says the Republican Party is more worried about beating President Barack Obama than about creating jobs.

“So far, they only appear to care about one job -- Barack Obama’s -- and Democrats care about American jobs,” Wasserman-Schultz said this afternoon during a press avail.

The chairwoman is spending the weekend in the Hawkeye State not only campaigning for a few Members of Congress but also pushing for passage of the president’s American Jobs Act.

“The benefit of the American Jobs Act, not only would it be a shot in the arm for the economy, but President Obama proposed it with it being fully paid for," Wasserman-Schultz said. "We are confident. We can’t afford to wait. We can’t spend months or weeks waiting for scores. We need to act. The American people need jobs now."

It's unclear, however, how the measure would be paid for. The president tasked the joint "supercommittee" with finding a way to do so.

She contended Republicans in Congress want to beat Obama at the expense of the U.S. economy. A lot of the problems, Wasserman-Schultz said, come from the Tea Party and what she said was a lack of leadership by Speaker John Boehner to allow a small group of members to dictate what his caucus will or will not support.

“They are willing to allow the economy to remain stagnant for another 14 months and not move forward together in recovery in order to just be able to regain the White House,” Wasserman-Schultz said about the Republicans not supporting Obama's jobs act.

Of course, she also weighed in on the 2012 GOP presidential race while speaking to reporters at Drake University. After all, she was in that all-important first-in-the-nation caucus state.

“They are really all the same," the Florida congresswoman said. "It doesn’t really much matter which one of them wins the primary. They can’t out right wing the other enough."

The DNC chair, who only mentioned GOP contenders Rick Perry and Mitt Romney by name once, says she is confident that President Obama will win reelection and believes that Democrats can take back the House of Representatives, as well. She said she plans to be back in Iowa a few times next year.

HAMPTON, ATKINSON and MANCHESTER NH -- Stumping in Mitt Romney's backyard on Saturday, an energetic Texas Gov. Rick Perry worked aggressively to assure New Hampshire voters that he is the best GOP candidate to address border security and immigration issues.

"I'm a governor. I don't have the pleasure of standing on the stage and criticizing," he told a town hall audience in Hampton, in reference to attacks he has weathered from rivals on his handling of illegal immigration in his home state of Texas. "I have to deal with these issues."

Perry fielded questions throughout the day on his support for a 2001 bill to offer in-state tuition to illegal immigrants, which he explained as a state-based solution to prevent those students from ending up "on the government dole" due to their lack of education. He also highlighted his fights as Texas governor to institute voter identification laws and prevent illegal immigrants from obtaining drivers licenses. 

Although Romney signs and T-shirted volunteers were present throughout the governor's four campaign appearances of the day in New Hampshire, Perry did not attack Romney by name -- instead focusing on his own economic credentials and his solutions for border security.

Asked about the issue by a voter who supports Perry's philosophy of strategic metropolitan fencing rather than a continuous barrier across the US-Mexico border, Perry said that the latter would create a "false sense of security we don't have boots on the ground."

The Texas governor also suggested that he would be open to sending U.S. troops to Mexico to aid that nation's government in eliminating drug cartels -- a position he also voiced before his 2012 run.

"We were able to stop the drug cartels in Colombia was with a coordinated effort. It may require our military in Mexico, working in concert with them, to kill these drug cartels and keep them off our border and to destroy their network," he said. "I don't know all the different scenarios that would be out there, but I think it is very important for us to work with them to keep that country from failing."

Perry spokesman Robert Black said that Perry was not advocating specifically for a U.S. military presence in the nation's southern neighbor, but that he is prepared to "look at all options" to help resolve violence that is spilling over the border. "We need to look at any ways that we can coordinate to shut that violence down," Black said.

Perry also continued to tout his economic credentials, even hinting at some additional star power in his kitchen cabinet when he mentioned that he has been consulting with former presidential candidate Steve Forbes on fiscal policy.

Black confirmed that Perry met with Forbes in New York on a recent fundraising visit.

From the seacoast to the state's hub, Perry hopped across southern New Hampshire, hitting a woodsy town hall, a country club crowd, and a chili cookoff dampened by afternoon rain.

He finished his Granite State swing by kissing one of the region's most important political rings.

Appearing at the home of Republican gubernatorial candidate and one-time Senate contender Ovide Lamontagne, Perry offered vocal support to a candidate whose endorsement is one of the most prized of the cycle.

"This country will be better when you have a man like Ovide in your capitol," Perry said. "That's the kind of governor that we long for in this country."

HAMPTON, NH -- At a town hall meeting earlier this morning, Texas Gov. Rick Perry offered an in-depth explanation why the Lone Star State -- under his watch -- has allowed illegal immigrants to receive in-state tuition at Texas universities and colleges.

The explanation was received well by the crowd here.

"We have, for decades, had a federal government that has absolutely failed in its constitutional duty to defend our border," Perry said.

"I'm a governor. I don't have the pleasure of standing on the stage and criticizing. I have to deal with these issues," he later added.

Perry continued, "In 2001, we had this choice: Are we going to kick these children over to the curb and say you cannot have access to college? Because the fact of the matter is there's no way they could pay the out-of-state tuition. And are we going to have them on the government dole over here because they're not educated? Or are we going to have them in our institutions of higher learning, paying in state tuition, pursuing citizenship?"

"So in Texas, we made the decision that it was in our best interest as a state -- economically and otherwise -- to have those young people in our institutions of higher learning becoming educated to be part of our skilled workforce."

David Connors, the man who asked Perry the in-state tuition question, said he was satisfied with the governor's answer.

"Send these kids to jail? Or are you trying to make them productive members of society? And I guess from that point of reference, I agree with him."

Connors, who said he arrived at the town hall 100% against in-state tuition for illegal immigrants, was swayed by Perry's answer at the town hall.

"I came in here saying no, and I'm going out now saying maybe," he told NBC News.

As for his vote in the New Hampshire primary, Connors says he "could" support Perry, but is waiting to hear from all the candidates.

By NBC's Carrie Dann

ATLANTA -- In his first public appearance since the weekend of his disappointing loss in the Florida straw poll, Gov. Rick Perry issued a broad attack on competitor Mitt Romney, reminding an audience of Georgia state lawmakers and conservative policy gurus of Romney's record on health care.

"As Republican voters decide who is best suited to lead this country in a new direction by stopping the spending spree and scrapping Obamacare, I am confident they will choose a nominee who has governed on conservative principles, not one whose healthcare policies paved the way for Obamacare, a path blazed with higher premium costs and thousands of lost jobs," he said.

In what his campaign billed as a policy speech to the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, which advertises being "the only free-market think tank in Georgia," Perry tied Romney to the Obama administration's health care and environmental policies. He noted that Massachusetts instituted both the Romney-signed individual mandate and cap-and-trade legislation.

"I knew when I got into this race I would have my hands full fighting President Obama’s big government agenda," he said. "I just didn’t think it would be in the Republican Primary."

Focusing on his economic record in Texas, the governor also lauded other states without individual income taxes. "Keep your taxes low. A personal income tax of zero is good," he said to applause. "Zero is good unless you're talking about job creation."

Perry, whose first fundraising haul will be closely watched as a barometer of his campaign, hinted at some of the items in his own record that have prompted cooling of his support among conservatives.

“I have a lengthy record, and it sometimes ruffles people's feathers," he said. "But sometimes you have to shake up the system.”

While much of his speech consisted of a litany of complaints against the Obama administration, Perry opened his remarks with kind words for the White House and the military for the death of al Qaeda operative Anwar Al-Alwaki

"I want to take a moment to congratulate the United State military and our intelligence community and President Obama for sticking with government's long-standing and aggressive anti-terror policies for getting another key terrorist, international terrorist I might add, in the death of this American-raised Al Qaeda leader Anwar al Awlaki."

"His death will be quite a serious setback for that organization," he said.

*** UPDATE *** The Romney camp responds to First Read: "Romney never entered in to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative while he was governor. His Democrat successor Deval Patrick did."

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- While it doesn’t receive the early attention that Iowa and New Hampshire get in presidential primary politics, South Carolina holds this important distinction: its winner has gone on to capture every Republican nomination since 1980.

The most recent Winthrop University poll, released less than two weeks ago, showed Texas Gov. Rick Perry leading with 31% and Mitt Romney a close second with 27.5%.

That might be surprising to some, who see South Carolina as not much more than a socially conservative state. But understanding the different kinds of conservatives who live here -- whether in the Upstate (dominated by social conservatives), the Midlands (the Republican power center with its mix of establishment Republicans and military voters), and Lowcountry (with its strong military presence and fiscally minded Northern transplants on the coast) -- are key to winning the Palmetto State’s GOP presidential primary.

“South Carolina is not a monolithic place,” said Mark Tompkins, a political science professor at the University of South Carolina. “It’s conservative for sure, but there are all these different strains of conservatism.”

As candidates try to outdo each other’s conservative credentials here, the 2008 South Carolina primary election serves as a reminder that it’s not always the most conservative candidate who wins the state.

“It helps to be able to appeal everywhere,” said Warren Tompkins, a longtime presidential campaign adviser, who is not affiliated with a candidate this cycle (and is no relation to the aforementioned Mark). “And, generally, whoever gets the plurality runs fairly decently across the board.”

Not always the most conservative candidate who wins
When John McCain won in 2008, he did so with just 33% of the vote -- and with a little help from Fred Thompson. McCain, a war hero, was able to dominate in the Midlands and Lowcountry.

Mike Huckabee, who finished second with 30%, won the biggest share of the state’s self-declared evangelical voters, which made up 60% of voters in 2008, according to exit polls, but Thompson siphoned off a crucial 15% of those voters -- and split the vote with Huckabee in the Upstate counties. Huckabee’s campaign argued at the time that Thompson’s 16% overall finish likely cost Huckabee the election.

“We got awful close,” Huckabee said in 2008 after the results were finalized.

The Upstate: Where God and country matter
It comes as no surprise that Huckabee, a former Baptist minister, was able to sell a Christian conservative message in the heavily evangelical Upstate. The region is home to Bob Jones University, which calls itself “the foremost fundamental Christian University.”

The Upstate’s focus on social issues was evident when Perry campaigned there recently. A woman congratulated him for saying evolution was a theory. “Well, God is how we got here,” Perry responded.

Romney, who finished fourth in South Carolina in 2008 with 15%, has largely kept his distance from the area. His religion -- he’s Mormon -- was a hurdle, especially in the Upstate, where he received as little as 8% in some counties. It remains to be seen if he rethinks sidestepping the state, given his standing in the Winthrop poll and Perry’s recent stumbles.

The Upstate isn’t just a key place for candidates to burnish their socially conservative credentials. It also contains some of the most voter-rich counties in the state. Republican consultant Chip Felkel, who worked on both of George W. Bush’s campaigns, pointed out that 52 percent of the 2008 primary vote came from seven counties – three of which are located in the region, including Greenville, which had the highest overall turnout.

In order to win in South Carolina, “you don’t necessarily have to be ardent on the social issues like a [Rick] Santorum, but you have to have bona fides on the social issues in order to take care of those votes in the Upstate,” said Felkel, who is unaffiliated but would have worked for Haley Barbour if he had decided to run.

The region has also always been a business hub for the state, first with tobacco farming, then textiles, and now through companies like BMW, whose only American factory is in Spartanburg. That environment breeds a sort of libertarianism, inherited from farmers who were wary of, as Mark Tompkins put it, “pointy-headed bureaucrats in Washington telling us we have to do all these things about tobacco.” That fits well with the present-day Tea Party.

The Midlands: A GOP establishment power center
In addition to dominating in the Lowcountry, McCain made up for his shortcomings in the Upstate also by almost sweeping the Midlands, an area Mark Tompkins describes as a “melting pot.” It has a strong military presence, including Shaw Air Force Base and Fort Jackson, the Army’s largest basic training center, helping McCain win nine of the area’s 10 counties.

The Midlands is also home to the state’s capital city, Columbia, as well as the University of South Carolina, the flagship institution of the state’s college system. Columbia is also a stronghold for African-American Democrats. Black voters make up more than half of Democratic primary voters, and churches here were must-stops in 2008 for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who drew huge crowds. Two historically black colleges, Allen University and Benedict College, are also located in the capital city.

The Lowcountry: Beach, business, and the military
The Lowcountry has experienced an influx of Northerners -- largely retirees attracted to South Carolina’s home prices. For example, the population of Beaufort County, which includes the beach community of Hilton Head, surged by 34% over the past 10 years, according to the 2010 Census. Mark Tompkins characterized Lowcountry political strain as “business conservatism,” bolstered by “a bunch of rich Yankees in retirement homes.

As in the Midlands, the military has a big presence in the Lowcountry, with Air Force and Coast Guard bases, a Marine Corps Air Station and the Parris Island Marine Corps training grounds. That combination of military and older, more moderate voters helped McCain win six of the eight counties associated with the region.

Romney finished second in two of the counties, Beaufort and Charleston. His most recent of his infrequent trips to the Palmetto state this cycle took him, in fact, to Charleston. Charleston is also the home of a new Boeing plant, the subject of a National Labor Relations Board lawsuit alleging Boeing built the plant here in order to punish striking union workers in Washington State. Like all Republican candidates looking to curry favor with leaders in this non-union state, Romney railed against President Obama’s NLRB appointments, calling them “an egregious example of political payback.”

This time around, the region could be up for grabs -- if Romney decides to play in the state. He has the business experience, but Perry’s military experience (and Romney’s lack of it) is a hurdle.

The numbers coming out of the state are still “very fluid” and decisions about allocating resources in South Carolina and other primary states are ongoing, said Kevin Madden, an informal Romney adviser, who served as his 2008 communications director.

But, Madden added, “Rick Perry’s meltdown with conservatives around the immigration issue has hurt him there, and his positioning on Social Security is devastating with older voters and retirees. All of that makes it a competitive race.”

Romney will make more stops in South Carolina, but don't expect him to campaign here very heavily. Florida's primary is likely to be held just days later, and because of early voting, it's possible that as much as half of Florida's vote could be in by the time South Carolina's primary takes place.

The temptation to play here could also be a trap. Felkel believes Perry has the best chance to garner majorities from all corners of the South Carolina map.

“The state is tailor-made for Rick Perry,” Felkel said. “Because he gets the business community; he’s got military background, social conservatives like him, and he’s got that independent streak that Carolinians seem to like. Case in point, John McCain.”

NBC's Domenico Montanaro contributed reporting to this story.