Columbia, S.C. – Hillary Clinton scored a decisive victory Saturday in South Carolina and redemption for the 2008 defeat that hobbled her first campaign for the White House, as minority voters who abandoned her eight years ago returned to her camp in force.
Her victory over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the first Democratic primary in the South – and the first where black voters are the dominant force in the electorate - is a good omen for her campaign as the race hurtles to Georgia and 10 other states that hold votes on Tuesday.
More than half of South Carolina’s Democratic voting base is black, similar to the voter blocs in Georgia and other Southern states that cast ballots in three days. Her victory, called by the networks and The Associated Press seconds after polls closed, was a show of force in the region.
"When we stand together there is no barrier too big to break," she said at her campaign party in a Columbia arena. "And tomorrow this campaign goes national. We are going to compete for every vote in every state. And we're not taking anything or any one for granted."
Sanders struggled to connect with black voters in South Carolina in the days before the vote, and left the state on Saturday in search of friendlier terrain. He instead held rallies in Texas and Minnesota, both which hold votes Tuesday, in a clear signal he was conceding South Carolina.
"We won a decisive victory in New Hampshire. She won a decisive victory in South Carolina," he said in a statement. "Now it's on to Super Tuesday. In just three days, Democrats in 11 states will pick 10 times more pledged delegates on one day than were selected in the four early states so far in this campaign."
It was an especially sweet victory for Clinton, whose nearly 30-point loss in South Carolina to Obama in 2008 paved the way for his eventual nomination. Influential minority leaders bolted to Obama’s side, and he swept Georgia and other Southern states with powerful black voting bases.
That 2008 contest got heated after former President Bill Clinton criticized Obama’s stance on the Iraq war and appeared to question his legitimacy as a presidential candidate. But throngs of voters Saturday returned to the Clinton fold thanks partly to an expansive get-out-the-vote effort her campaign built over almost a year.
That operation helped win over Rep. James Clyburn, the state's most influential Democrat, who endorsed last week despite a public clash with Bill Clinton eight years ago. And it helped drive out thousands of voters to events around the state featuring the husband-and-wife duo.
"All we need is to join hands around the best change-maker I've ever known," the ex-president said at a Friday night rally in downtown Columbia. "You can change the future of America by voting for Hillary."
Clinton has more aggressively embraced Obama’s agenda as Sanders drew closer in national polls. She casts herself as the biggest defender of his policies and pitted Sanders, with his Medicare for All and tuition-free public college education plans, as a threat to his biggest achievements.
“I don’t think President Obama gets the credit he deserves,” she said to roars of applause in rallies Friday in Atlanta and South Carolina.
Some voters were split over Sanders’ call for a political “revolution” and Clinton’s ties to the region. Bertrand Brown, a security officer, headed to the polls without making up his mind.
“Hillary is talking about voting rights. Bernie is talking about education. And I’m torn over both,” he said. “The election this year, I’m just not too wild about. Don’t get me wrong – the debates are hilarious. But I just can’t get into it.”
Early exit polls showed that black voters made up about 60 percent of Democratic primary voters, and Clinton’s back-to-back wins in Nevada and South Carolina – both states with diverse populations – showed she’s consolidating support among minorities.
Her victory also gives her a clear advantage in the fight for delegates needed to clinch the nomination. Some 53 delegates were up for grabs in South Carolina, and she was primed to lock up most of them.
The path ahead for Sanders is now more complicated, and his defeat in South Carolina does not bode well for his performance in other Southern states. The progressive message that fueled him to a tight second-place finish in Iowa and a commanding victory in New Hampshire has so far failed to resonate with more diverse electorates.
“What the Sanders campaign has been able to do here has been amazing, but a lot of the Southern states are similarly situated,” said Jaime Harrison, the chair of South Carolina’s Democratic Party. “And how you get more African-Americans to support him is a challenge. The Clintons have been a brand here for so long.”
But more than half the delegates needed to secure the nomination hang in the balance in March, and he is competing in smaller states including Oklahoma and his home state of Vermont on Tuesday in hopes of scoring some wins.
"Let me be clear on one thing tonight: This campaign is just beginning," Sanders said.
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