News Analysis: Trump, Clinton lead Republican, Democratic packs ahead of South Carolina primaries

U.S. billionaire mogul Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton lead the Republican and Democratic packs of candidates, respectively, ahead of the primaries in the southern state of South Carolina, experts said.

Trump, the outspoken business tycoon, is heading the pack of other Republican Party (GOP) candidates as the race has virtually dwindled to a three-men contest on Saturday's Republican primary in South Carolina. The two other main contenders are Marco Rubio, a senator from Florida, and Ted Cruz, a senator from Texas.

At the same time, Clinton, the former first lady and secretary of state, is leading her only rival Senator Bernie Sanders ahead of the Democratic primary to be held on Feb. 27 in South Carolina.

Over the last several months, Trump has beaten analysts' predictions that he would fade out quickly. While losing the Iowa caucuses on Feb.1, Trump won the primary held in New Hampshire last week.

All three top GOP candidates are political outsiders and not part of the elite club of establishment Republicans. Analysts say the trend shows that GOP rank and file voters are tired of candidates they view as elitists and out of touch with ordinary Americans.

"It has become a three-candidate fight in South Carolina: Trump, Cruz, and Rubio. Trump has been leading in all the surveys and is expected to win. The real battle is between Cruz and Rubio for second place," Brookings Institution's senior fellow Darrell West told Xinhua.

Indeed, the person who wins Saturday's Republican primary in South Carolina will be in a strong position to do well in the state of Florida and other Southern states, experts said.

"The goal at this point is for Cruz or Rubio to become the alternative to Trump. Cruz has an edge over Rubio with evangelical voters, but Rubio got the coveted endorsement from Governor Nikki Haley," West said of South Carolina's Republican governor. "She is well-respected there so that was a major advantage for Rubio."

Cruz came in first in the recent Iowa Caucuses, on his firebrand style of weaving religious references into his speeches, in a state with a strong evangelical Christian presence.

In terms of who evangelicals will vote for, Cruz has an advantage in South Carolina, although it remains unclear whether the group will form the powerful voting bloc that they did in Iowa.

Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, analysts believe that Hillary Clinton will perform much better in South Carolina than she did in New Hampshire, when she was thoroughly and unexpectedly trounced by Sanders.

Experts said Sanders is gaining popularity on his anti-establishment message, at a time when Democrats also say they are fed up with Washington insiders.

But the self-professed socialist is not expected to do well in the southern states, which are more conservative and have a larger population of African Americans, who are mostly supporting Clinton.

"Hillary has a huge advantage in South Carolina, particularly given how she is doing with the African American vote. She will also do better with moderate democrats," Julian Zelizer, professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, told Xinhua.

West echoed those sentiments, saying that Clinton has the advantage over Sanders in South Carolina.

"More than half of the Democratic voters are expected to be African Americans and she has been winning that vote by a two to one margin over Sanders. Unless Sanders can do better in the minority community, she should be in good shape in South Carolina," West said. Endit