Clinton thunders to big win over Sanders in South Carolina

Clinton won about 85% of black voters, who made up roughly two-thirds of the primary electorate, according to an exit poll that included almost 1,400 voters.

It was a bumpy ride through the early states – but Clinton’s firewall of minority support held, helping her seal a close contest in Nevada and then turn SC into her first dominant win of the 2016 race. SC has cauterized the bleeding the Clinton campaign sustained with her barely eking out a win in Iowa and her epic slaughter in New Hampshire.

Clinton was supported by over 9 in 10 voters saying experience was the most important quality in choosing a candidate, and 8 in 10 of those saying it was most important to choose a candidate who can win in November.

That bodes well for Clinton headed into Super Tuesday contests across the South, where several states are home to large populations of black voters.

“There’s no way we’re going to lose Minnesota”. And they were more significant, as black voters made up more than 60% of the electorate.

Saturday’s results represent Clinton’s widest margin of victory so far as she used SC to separate herself from Sanders.

In Richland County, where half of voters are black, according to the State Election Commission, Clinton captured more than 75 percent of the vote.

Hillary Clinton won the South Carolina Democratic primary on February 27.

Even this might not be enough in a place like Minnesota or MA, depending on whether one assumes that Mr Sanders has an advantage in caucus states like Minnesota or a state bordering Vermont like MA. There are 59 delegates up for grabs in SC – six of those are Superdelegates.

Clinton’s SC win is a big role-reversal from her 2008 showing against Obama. He was widely supported by African-American voters, a critical demographic in the state. “This campaign is just beginning”, Sanders said.

“Support from African-Americans is going to be the key for Secretary Clinton across the South, and SC is a good indication of that”, said former governor Richard Riley, who was education secretary under President Bill Clinton and is a supporter of Hillary Clinton.

While Clinton is bashing Trump on the campaign trail, she won’t be able to start reaching out to moderate voters any time soon, with Sanders’ strength among liberals constantly pulling Clinton leftward on policy.

“Sanders is hardly in the state at all this week”, Huffmon said. We won a decisive victory in New Hampshire. Donald Trump, working to build an insurmountable lead, was campaigning in Arkansas with former rival Chris Christie and calling Marco Rubio a “light little nothing;” Ted Cruz was asking parents in Atlanta if they would be pleased if their children spouted profanities like the brash billionaire, and Rubio was mocking Trump as a “con artist” with “the worst spray tan in America”. If they do, could it be the youth that keeps Sanders in the race in the aftermath of Super Tuesday primaries?

Exit polls showed Clinton winning big in the state with nearly every constituency.

The Democratic race now becomes a broader national contest.

She capped off months of campaigning here with stops on Friday at a popular soul food restaurant and bakery in Charleston and a rally at a historically black college in Orangeburg, alongside black surrogates including the TV personality Star Jones and the state’s longtime USA representative, James E. Clyburn.

Turnout has to be big for Sanders to have a chance, but he seems to have written the state off, said political science professor Scott Huffmon, at Winthrop University in SC.