voters. i think we'll be surprised by the results. >> one surprise could be an update by ted cruz who has narrowed the gap with front runner donald trump in the latest poll. cruz who plans to attend justice antonin scalia's funeral reminds voters that it's not just the presidency at stake but the supreme court as well. >> we are one justice away from a liberal majority that will strike down abortion and mandate unlimited abortion on demand. >> john kasich closed his rally with a simple message. >> if you didn't like me don't tell anybody. >> as the campaign enters its final hours candidates are hoping to sway undecided voters with speeches and calls from campaign offices. in some cases voters are swaying

>> are you decided in -- are you decided? >> no. >> he said donald trump 's temper is a problem. >> he needs to learn humility and how to speak to people. >> traits trump has not needed at his rallies. craig boswell, cbs news columbia, south carolina. >> so if you were at donald trump's event in gaffney yesterday pay attention. >> secret service and deputies confiscated a lot of things. take a look at this pile. they got everybody from baseballs, selfie sticks, pepper spray. if any of these items are yours call the cherokee county sheriff's office to get them back. addie hampton has been busy this week live at the greenville marriott where ted cruz has a rally tonight. hopefully addie is wearing running shoes because she'e runnin all over the upstate covering this campaign. you've got perspective on this, addie. we've seen these candidates go to rallies one after another, on the debate stage and on national

we wanted to talk to you since you've been to the one on one rallies when they're in small groups. are they going at other as hard in person when they're in those one on one rallies? >> reporter: well, you know what, i think it actually depends on which candidate you're talking about. if you're talking about john kasich or ben carson they're trying to stay on their message. then you go to a donald trump rally and he's fighting hard against ted cruz, marco rubio and he's really been hitting hard against governor jeb bush. so a little bit of more mud slinging. i don't know if that has a correlation with the higher up in polls that you're seeing. differences across the board for sure. >> some specific differences in those campaign rallies were they largely talking to own supporters, how are those different? what are you seeing in person that's different from what we've seen on tv? >> reporter: you know, a lot of

rallies have already made up their mind. for those that haven't a lot of people said they're looking for somebody who is presidential. it's the quote that i hear a lot of times. however, somebody's definition of presidential is going to vary based on who you support. for instance, somebody wanting somebody more human i guess they have attended a governor kasich rally. you saw that viral moment yesterday when he hugged that young man who was almost to the point of tears. people really getting behind governor kasich giving him a second look. other people saying they want a donald trump. he's very popular here in south carolina. 20 points in some polls. they like maybe the celebrity aspect. somebody who is a no nonsense gives people what they want to hear. it's going to be interesting to see how this shakes out tomorrow. >> addie hampton is earning a phd in campaign politics this week. thank you. the heated contest is expect

expected to lead to -- is expected to lead to a record turn out tomorrow. 20,000 absentee ballots have already been cast. tomorrow it's expected to beat the total voting during a gop primary that was set in 2012 with 580,000 votes. clemson university released their poll today. the telephone survey of 650 people was taken the day after last weekend's republican debate. it has donald trump leading with 28% support. ted cruz was second with 19%. marco rubio just 3% behind that. jeb bush and john kasich and ben carson received the least support. there's hope yet. 13% say they are still undecided. speaking of polls, you've been giving us your opinion in our 7 news online poll. more than 1,300 of you weighed in. a couple of notes before we start digging into the results, the poll was taken online from wednesday afternoon until 2:00

unlike a lot of polls where you're trying to get representative samples we relied on you to volunteer for this poll. this is interesting. first of all we asked you how do you identify by party. 2/3 told us they are republicans. that number does match up with actual voting pattern in 2012 in anderson, pickens, greenville, spartanburg and cherokee. they went for mitt romney against president obama. 60% of you said that you are evangelical christians. we looked at endorsements. we talked about them all week and you've seen the candidates touring the state with the people who have endorsed them. the big one governor nikki haley on

this is people nine out of ten saying they will not take into consideration the fact that governor nikki haley endorsed marco rubio. people are telling us the endorsements here if i can get this gizmo to work didn't matter. one more thing before we get to the candidates themselves, we know that's what you want to see, this may be one of the most important ways to interpret what we're seeing in the results, we asked you how do you feel about the job being done by congress. this is the dividing line. this is the people who think they don't have an opinion or congress is not doing a particularly good job. up here, 7% said they are doing a somewhat good job, less than 1% said they think congress is doing a very good job. now, with a margin of error with plus numbers. 44% of the people who responded in our poll told us donald trump will be the -- if i can get this gizmo to work, their choice for president. second place in our poll and

marco rubio, coming in second at 22%. the only other candidate in our poll coming in at double digits, ted cruz at about 15%. we're rounding up here. one more thing before we move on from our online poll that has fascinating results, the establishment candidates, rubio, kasich and bush, in our poll if you combined their results if i can get the right one here those don't add up to donald trump's number. it will be very interesting to watch those numbers when the votes are counted starting at 7:00 p.m. tomorrow night. tomorrow night remember you can count on us to bring you the votes. continuous updates here and on the air at wspa.com. you'll get them all the time through the 7 news app. so the other thing that we are all counting down to is the weekend. things are looking pretty good outside right now. meteorologist christy henderson tells me that the weather will be changing. >> yes. >> it was gorgeous dodd -- today. i don't want it to change .

of both. we'll keep getting warmer which is good but we'll bring in some clouds and shower chances. for all the voters heading out in south carolina tomorrow the weather is going to stay mostly dry. i think we're all right there. look at the readings tonight, right now 59 in spartanburg, 60 degrees in anderson, 54 asheville. not bad. we've got mostly clear skies that we'll hold onto for the next several hours. over night we will see some clouds on the increase. that's going to slow the temperature down. we'll stop mainly in the lower 40s by tomorrow morning with lots of clouds and a dry start to our saturday. we'll talk more about those increasing shower chances that are on the way for the weekend in your forecast coming up in just a few minutes. >> thank you. tonight new details about a deadly house fire in spartanburg. the coroner identified the victim as 69-year-old roger coats. the call came in at 7:00 a.m. on summerland drive. flames were coming through the roof. it took 15 minutes to get the fire out.

dog. the home did not appear to have working smoke detectors, something the chief said to keep in mind. >> as winter comes around it's a dangerous time for fires in homes. make sure that you do have a working smoke detector in your home. it could be the difference between saving your life and losing your life. >> tonight we're still working to figure out what started that fire. >> police say a distracted driver ended up driving off a bridge and crashing in a ditch. officers say around 2:00 a.m. a driver who was texting drove right through a barricade and off that bridge. he was trapped inside with a broken arm and for help. he had to wait for the construction crew to arrive for work and call 911. police say they haven't decided whether to ticket the man. expect lane closures if you're driving on i-85 through spartanburg county this weekend. crews are restructuring and paving both directions from highway 14 to highway 129. work

crews tried to do the work last year but the road was too deteriorated. this time it will happen before the road is repaved. all lanes will be back open by monday morning. a federal report said south carolina's medicaid agency exposed roughly 1 million people personal's health information to cyber theft. >> hackers would have had an easy time of it if they tried. the department of health and human services said they had no security plan for its computer system, no encryption on laptops and did not properly train employees. the agency said it's now taken action on all of those findings. how much do you know about your children's teachers? a few oh of them have skeletons in their closet. by took a look into secret teacher files straight ahead.

secrets...about teachers... who couldn't hack it in the classroom. your school is hiding secrets about teachers who just couldn't hack it in the class room. at least nine up state districts used a separation agreement. it's a contract that allows employees to resign instead of being fired. >> some even agreed to use secret sealed files to hide negative information about some former employees. it means a teacher forced out of one job is able to get rehired someone elsewhere a blank slate. >> there's no way to know what's bury in their past. >> in 2014 the oconee county school district made news. the washington news, okay magazine picked up the story of charlie fowler. fowler was the assistant principal took a picture of a 6-year-old girl in walmart, posted it on facebook

boo at walmart. >> all that publicity didn't stop the school district from trying to keep it secret using a separate agreement. they agreed to hide all e-mails, documentation that show concerned about fowler's performance in a sealed file. the district promised in a new employer called it would give a neutral reference. >> in fowler's case anyone with an internet connection can get the story. it's not always that easy. in fact, we found districts all over the upstate using these separation agreements for teachers that couldn't hack it in the class rooms. teachers who got in trouble for sexual harassment or escorted from the building. they might be teaching in your child's classroom right now and you'd know know about their history because every bad review is locked away in a secret file. sexual remarks...that span more than a decade... much of it so explicit we can't put t >> i gi n the

secret deals in just 3 years. this one includes formal complaints of sexual harassment against a school district employee filed by two different teachers. several more said the employee made them feel unsafe. it doesn't say the specific sexual remarks. we can't put it on tv. in 2014 because of district's separation agreement all disappear from the employee's personnel file. while this employee is not eligible to work in greenville county again we still don't know who this accused sexual harasser is and neither one would his next employer. >> he could be working in an upstate class room right now. obe lyles. >> you can understand why that would be unsettling to somebody? >> we're not talking about high level offenses. we're talking ability performance-based

>> they're not performing to the standard in the classroom. >> here's why that matters, teachers are licensed by the state board of education and the big offenses like an arrest or sexual encounter with a student would be reviewed by the full board. if they took action it would become a public record. anything that falls short like the teacher who gave home work comparing the pope to a mass murderer and the o oe sent home for gross misconduct or the teachers who can't get the job of teaching done the district request use a separation agreement to cover up every parent complaint or disciplinary action. >> why would you do that? >> separation agreements you still get to the same end result. that's end of employment. >> it's the end of employment at one district but these agreements open the door to a

because the new district can't be sure of the teachers secret past neither can you. the districts told us they need >> so these districts told us they need these agreements because it gets rid of some employees and saves money. if a teacher is fired they could appeal and that could get expensive. allowing them to resign they end the proceces faster and cheaper. >> getting retired the key may be the neutral reference. when they get anything other than a glowing recommendation that does raise a red flag. >> they hope they can sniff out the files at that point before they make a hire. we had beautiful weather today. lots of clear skies. it was a great day to make extend that lunch hour just a bit or get off work a little early if you can. changes are coming. you can see in that live picture of downtown greenville skies are still nice and blue but clouds will be increasing over night. now, those clouds will act as a blanket to keep us milder tonight. we're not looking for

our saturday. the mountains may have enough moisture for a shower during the day tomorrow. there's a better chance the upstate will stay dry. into sunday we'll start to see better rain chances arriving for all of us, especially by the afternoon and evening hours. the area of high pressure that's kept our weather so beautiful toed will be moving out. -- beautiful today will be moving out. today winds have been moving out of the south at 10 to 15 miles per hour bringing in that warmth. that's made for a nice day around here. as that high moves out high pressure and a front will move closer to us over the weekend. that's going to help the cloud cover and the rain chances to increase, especially by sunday night. so for now you're in good shape. if you're out for the evening no problems with the weather. for most of us tomorrow it will be okay too. we'll see a lot of clouds. a chilly start to our day. winds still out of the south. it will be a warmer afternoon verses what we saw today, which isn't bad at all. a few mountain showers but mostly dry weather

into sunday pretty quiet morning on tap for us. lots of clouds but out to the west a front will get closer to us and that will trigger some rain over the middle part of tennessee that will try to move into and through the area during the afternoon and evening hours. into the middle part of next week we'll have to hold onto unsettled weather and higher rain chances. right now 54 in asheville, 59 in spartanburg and 60 in anderson. here's your pinpoint planner. sunny skies and 59 degrees. down to 44 by tomorrow morning. heavy on the clouds tomorrow but mostly dry and a warm afternoon too with a high near 63. for the next 72 hours rain chances will be increasing. most of the upstate will stay dry during the daylight hours. by sunday afternoon into sunday night higher chances for some showers around. highs up to near 70 degrees though on sunday. so, again, if you can trade in the clouds for the temperatures it's

you'll need the umbrellas next week. a good rain chance on tuesday. chilly weather comes back too, tuesday's high only 50 degrees. the mountain forecast shower chances higher tomorrow and then a better chance for rain coverage wise into sunday, monday, tuesday and wednesday. it getting chillier in the mountains too with the highs in the 40s by tuesday. >> thank you, christy. next on 7 news live at 5:00, if you've ever gotten so frustrated you feel like punching a wall this next story is for you. hear about a new tantrums. >> jeb bush is trailing but how he's calling his mom for help on the campaign trail at 5:30. >> here's a look at your

>> live at 5:00 continues welcome back to 7 news

felt so stressed out this is 7 news live at 5:00. have you ever felt so stressed out you want to break something? there's a business in houston, texas that allows you to have an adult tantrum. you can book a session in a soundproof room. you can break, smash or destroy any items in the room. one in three of us are not getting enough rest. a new stud cdc study looked at adults. here in the carolinas every three nights we don't make it to 7 hours. not getting enough rest can lead to lots of health problems including obesity, diabetes and mental illness. how much sleep do you get? head to wspa.com or our facebook page and weigh in. we'll go over the results at 5:40. the president candidates are invading your home. >> calling continuously.

vote. how e if he can tiff e if he can -- how effective are those tack tactics. >> the search for a shooting following a robbery at an upstate convenience store. how long the victim has been already robbed at this store.

baker now from the news station, this is 7 news live at 5:00. >> it is 5:29 and we are counting down to south carolina's republican primary. >> some candidates know they're running out of time to try to win your votes. donald trump is leading in most polls including ours. this is him in myrtle beach this morning. >> ted cruz also campaigning at the beach.

phil robertson, star of the show duck dynasty. in turn cruz suggested that he is the good person to be the representative for the united states. >> marco rubio continuing to get support from governor nikki haley on the campaign trail today. there they are. they rallied together at events in columbia. john kasich also started his day campaign anything the midlands with a rally in columbia and then headed towards the coast to conway. >> jeb bush is focusing most of his efforts on the upstate. >> barbara bush brought some celebrity to his campaign. they both sat down with 7 news anchor amy wood. how was that? >> it was neat to see barbara bush. i think there's a lot of barbara bush fans out there, people who followed her as a first lady and then a literacy advocate. jeb talked about this campaign and barbara about being back in south carolina. so let's listen. >> mrs. bush, are you enjoying your time? >> yes. >> in south carolina? >> a lot of fun. it's a thrill to be back . >> good to have her out on the