"South Carolina Republicans have a 30-year track record of picking the eventual Republican presidential nominee. We will continue that historic tradition on Jan. 21, 2012," Chad Connelly, the South Carolina Republican Chairman, said in a statement.
The executive director of the state's GOP told Reuters he expected the other early states would do the same. The Nevada Republican Party voted on Saturday to move up its primary, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Like Florida, South Carolina and Nevada will lose half of their delegates at next summer's Republican national convention for violating party rules.