The win comes on the heels of victories in Nevada, and New Hampshire. Sanders said, skipping over South Carolina’s place on the calendar.
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Hillary Clinton managed to pull off something fairly remarkable.
For Clinton, a win in SC would help wipe away bitter memories of her 2008 primary loss to Barack Obama in the first-in-the-South contest, and establish her as the firm favourite among black voters, a crucial segment of the Democratic electorate.
Hillary Clinton’s supporters celebrate her win in the South Carolina Primary. Sanders will continue to gather delegates to have more of a voice in the party, including some influence on the Democratic convention platform in Philadelphia. ABC News exit poll results show that 61% of voters were blacks and Clinton won 86% of their votes. Clinton won that group by 3 to 1.
In her victory speech, Clinton aimed a dig at the man tipped to be the Republican presidential candidate.
Hillary Clinton visits a coffee house in downtown Birmingham, Alabama on Saturday February 27, 2016. “I’m told 61 percent of the electorate was African American and she was able to galvanize that”. “I don’t think he can win the nomination, but we need to try”.
During a raucous victory rally, Clinton briefly reveled in her sweeping support from SC voters, hugging backers and posing with them for selfie photos.
“‘Tomorrow this campaign goes national”, she said. Clinton made a significant investment in the state, appealing in particular to African American women with her campaign’s “barber shop” strategy. “You never had to look over your shoulder and worry about attacks on the African-American community”, Fant said.
“Despite what you hear, we don’t need to make America great again”.
If Sanders does not show progress in his campaign against Clinton after the March 15 primaries, he might want to rethink staying in the race, said Cobb-Hunter, who chairs the Democratic National Committee’s Southern Regional Caucus. She said “more dreams die in the parking lots of banks than anywhere else” and promised to break the power of big money in politics and the economy.
Another ominous sign for Mr. Sanders: While almost nine in 10 black voters said they would trust Mrs. Clinton to handle race relations, nearly half said they would not trust him on race. “I mean, if it’s a loss it’s still a matter of how many delegates we can get”, said one supporter. Sanders also did well among young voters in Nevada, as he had in previous voting states. And he opened 11 SC offices. The outright majority of African-Americans among Democrats utterly dominates this statewide intraparty contest from start to finish. Iowa and New Hampshire exert their influence primarily as magnets for the media in the months before the voting begins. It was a state he should have won big and a state he won big.
That Clinton won SC surprised no one.
Clinton hit hard on issues important to African-American voters, including criminal justice and gun control, while also embracing President Obama. In Texas, Tennessee, Virginia and Arkansas, black voters are a smaller but still pivotal fraction of the party. One additional factor is the wonderful loyalty to Clinton among older black voters.
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Sanders came back to the Palmetto State late Friday, but he flew out again Saturday to campaign in Texas and Minnesota, where he held a rally as polls closed in SC. If Sanders did worse than expected here, why would he do better than expected there? Among independents, 6 in 10 backed Sanders.
