Donald Trump's salty language may play well in other parts of the country, but is seen as "crass" in the heavily evangelical South, according to members of a Mark Halperin focus group.
On Thursday's "Morning Joe" on MSNBC, Halperin played video of his conversation with a group of 10 South Carolinians, who had positive comments for the real estate mogul who is leading national polls for the GOP presidential nomination.
"He's very brave to have no political background and to jump out there and run for the highest office in our nation," one woman said.
"He's espousing what the people are feeling," a man in the group added.
But when Halperin asked if they believe Trump is a religious person as he has claimed, they weren't convinced.
"I'm not sure he's such a religious person," a man named Dan said.
"I think he's relatively honest but I don't believe him on his — what he says about his religion," a woman said.
Halperin asked the 10 members of the group to raise their hands if they disagreed with the two comments about Trump. No one raised a hand.
Halperin then played a video of Trump speaking to a crowd of supporters that was laden with vulgarities.
"If he gets the nomination, they're going to sue his [bleep] off ... We're going to knock the [bleep] out of ISIS. And you can tell them to go [bleep] themselves," Trump said.
The group appeared not to have gotten the benefit of the bleeps and was visibly upset, with one woman putting her hands over her face.
"Oh, my goodness," one said.
"You all have a pretty strong reaction to this," Halperin said. Is it something you'd consider disqualifying — or just not your cup of tea?"
At least seven of the 10 raised their hands, indicating it was disqualifying.
"It's crass," one woman said.
"It's not professional," another added.
"It's not how you want your president of the United States to present," said a third. "Not that kind of an image."
"This is who's going to be negotiating with other world leaders," another woman chimed in.
Halperin asked a man named Jacob if he thought aspects of Trump's life or the language heard in the clip might hurt him more in South Carolina than it did in Iowa or New Hampshire.
"The Bible Belt?" Jacob responded. "Oh, yeah."
"We don't tolerate that," one woman added.
"This is the belt buckle right here," Jacob said.