Supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton cheer at her election night watch party after winning the South Carolina Democratic primary in Columbia, S.C., Saturday, Feb. 27, 2016.
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But Sanders needs to have his breakout moment sooner rather than later, warned longtime Democratic activist Phil Noble, who said that Sanders’ momentum in SC “fell off the table” after Clinton’s solid victory in Nevada on 20 February.
Mr Sanders aims to stay close to Mrs Clinton in the south while focusing most of his attention on states in the Mid-west and north-east, including his home state of Vermont. Clinton’s advantage among delegates stood at 505 to 71 before Saturday’s primary, primarily due to her advantage among “superdelegates”, the elected officials and other top Democrats who get their own vote at the Democratic convention, along with the thousands of delegates chosen through state primaries and caucuses.
Sanders did receive a bit of good news over the weekend when he won the backing of Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, only the fourth member of Congress to support the candidate. Notably, Clinton’s victory was significantly larger than Barack Obama’s primary victory in the state in 2008, when he beat Clinton by capturing 78 percent of the vote.
Numerous south-eastern states voting on March 1 have diverse Democratic Party voter populations that look more like SC than the predominantly-white early primary states of Iowa and New Hampshire. A narrow Clinton victory in Virginia, the most northern of those states, would be a sign of her campaign underperforming. Mr Trump botched a reference to II Corinthians last month.
“Despite what you hear, we don’t need to make America great again”. “America never stopped being great”. But the coordinated push from the campaign and its supporters, including Democracy For America, helped Sanders beat that goal. “I will tell you the answer to that on Wednesday, how’s that?” he said.
“This campaign is just beginning”, he said.
Clinton was successful in SC, in part, because she embraced Obama, someone who remains popular among Democrat’s African-American base.
Sanders acknowledged Clinton’s SC victory from the tarmac upon arriving in Minnesota.
But Sanders says he is looking ahead to the Tuesday contests and beyond, expressing confidence that he can remain competitive. “We’re not taking anything and we’re not taking anyone for granted”.
Rubio fired more insults in the form of one-liners, again aimed at Trump.
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Clinton won all women voters by 58 points and carried black women (37 percent of the electorate) by 78 points.
