Stephen Colbert is currently polling at 5% in South Carolina, better even than real-life candidate Jon Huntsman, who logs just 4% of prospective voters.
The comedian has no plans to actually jump into the race. The survey, conducted by pollsters with a sense of humor at Public Policy Polling, was undertaken when Colbert tried (and failed) to sponsor the South Carolina primary, which will be held on Jan 21.
Colbert also tried (and failed) to get on the ballot along with a referendum about "whether corporations are people or only people are people."
In a statement on the poll, Public Policy Polling graciously announced "our team at PPP decided if he couldn't get all that stuff on the actual ballot, we could at least poll it for him."
So PPP tapped 1,112 likely Republican primary voters, and found that Colbert is polling at 5%, putting him in sixth place, just a hair ahead of Jon Huntsman and soundly trouncing Buddy Roemer's 1%.
But on the more serious matter of corporate personhood, PPP found Colbert, who grew up in South Carolina, would have had support on his proposed referendum. Only a third (33%) of likely voters think that 'corporations are people' compared to 67% who think that 'only people are people.'
Mitt Romney famously referenced the Supreme Court's controversial Citizens United ruling in August by telling a protester at a campaign event that "corporations are people, my friend."
But supporters of every Republican candidate believe that 'only people are people,' including two-thirds (66%) of Romney's.
