South Carolina Republican gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley was one of the first major "Mama Grizzlies" that Sarah Palin plucked from obscurity and helped propel to victory in the GOP primary. In a way, this foreshadowed the much larger Palin-influenced upsets in Alaska and, of course, Delaware.

But some polls have indicated that Haley may be struggling in her race against Democratic state Senator Vincent Sheheen. Democratic polling firm Hamilton Campaigns shows Haley with a narrow 49 percent to 44 percent lead. Insider Advantage, by contrast, shows Sheheen down 51 percent to 37 percent. Haley leads by 10.7 percent in the RCP Average.

A tight race here is consistent with some of the news that has been circulating about the Haley family. The rumors of affairs continue to swirl around Haley, and questions persist about the family's finances.

Overall, I think you can synthesize these polls as suggesting Haley is in the lead.  If you ignore the two polls from the Democratic firm, Sheheen has never been above 40 percent in the polls, while Haley hasn't been below 46 percent since June.  There may be an unusually large number of undecideds for this late in the game, but in a conservative state like South Carolina, we might expect them to break Republican.

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