Republican evangelical voters who went to the polls in South Carolina on Saturday voted for Mike Huckabee, but the former Baptist minister did not win the Christian conservative vote by a wide margin.

The results, some analysts said, showed that the Christian right is not as unified as it once was. Exit polls show that among nearly 60 per cent of South Carolina Republicans who identify themselves as born-again Christians or evangelicals, Mr Huckabee won support from four out of 10 voters, and was largely unable to expand his appeal to other conservative and moderate voters beyond his religious base.