Hillary Clinton projected to win SC primary

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has reclaimed front-runner status in the race for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, as she is the projected victor in Saturday’s SC primary.

Clinton made a stop in Alabama Saturday before returning to Columbia, South Carolina’s capital, for what her campaign hoped would be an evening victory party.

A victory here would also establish Clinton as the firm favourite among black voters, a crucial segment of the Democratic electorate, and set her up for a big delegate haul in next week’s Super Tuesday contests in the South.

And she is the favourite to triumph in SC, where 55% of voters in the 2008 Democratic contest were black.

Clinton has a one-delegate edge over Sanders after her narrow win in Iowa, her sweeping loss in New Hampshire and a five-point victory in Nevada.

Moderate to conservative Democrats also made up a larger portion of the electorate in SC than in previous states, according to exit polls, with almost half of voters identifying that way. Eleven states, including six in the South with large minority populations where polls show Clinton with big leads, will vote on Super Tuesday and four more over the next weekend.

SC was meant to be one of the bricks in Hillary Clinton’s “firewall” against a Bernie Sanders surge.

“I wouldn’t focus on the margin”, a campaign pollster said last week, “because it’s not going to be that close”. In proportional allocation, that matters-especially when Texas has more than twice as many delegates as any other contest. “Tonight we lost”, he said. “The type of grass roots organizing that stood Sanders in good stead in Iowa and New Hampshire just isn’t doable in mega-state Florida where TV commercials are the coin of the realm”.

“I don’t think Bernie has a shot in a national election, and this election is too important”, she said. But her efforts here seem more than that, an attempt to run up the score on Sanders whose campaign momentum already was slowed significantly by Clinton’s 5-point win in Nevada.

Sanders spent little time in SC in the closing days of the campaign.

Special education teacher Robert Bennett Terry of Mount Pleasant voted for Bernie Sanders, even though he says Clinton can beat Donald Trump and doesn’t think Sanders can. Instead of remaining in the Palmetto State to wait for results, Sanders opted instead to turn his eye toward Super Tuesday states voting March 1.

Mrs. Clinton shored up support of liberal voters by making gun-control a mainstay of her agenda, as well as highlighting Mr. Sanders mixed record on the issue as a senator from gun-loving Vermont.

“The Clintons have worked the African American community here for 30 years”, said Donald L. Fowler, a longtime South Carolina Democratic leader and chairman of the Democratic National Committee when Bill Clinton was president.

The en masse movement touched a nerve with former President Bill Clinton. Independents, of whom Sanders considers himself one, supported him 62 percent to 37 percent for Clinton.

Where do we go from here……

She said she also liked Clinton’s positions on working to end gun violence and deal with the high incarceration rates of young black males.

Taken together, 865 Democratic delegates are up for grabs in the Super Tuesday contests in 11 states and American Samoa.

Even if Clinton nabs a majority of delegates next month, as polling suggests, Sabato said he expects Sanders to continue his campaign, fueled by small-dollar donations.

“However, Bernie Sanders is certainly someone who will bring change to all the people who need change in this great nation of ours”, said Terry, who is white, voting at a middle school in suburban Charleston.