Hillary Clinton’s Winning Numbers in South Carolina Suggest Sweep in South
After winning South Carolina’s Democratic primary eight years ago, Senator Barack Obama declared that “after four great contests, we have the most votes, the most delegates, and have the broadest coalition for change.” Tonight it is his former opponent, Hillary Clinton, who can now make the same claim.
She has won South Carolina by a wide margin, most likely exceeding Mr. Obama’s own 29-point victory in 2008, based on early exit polls and results. She did it the same way that Mr. Obama did: with overwhelming support from black voters, who favored Mrs. Clinton over Bernie Sanders by a margin of 84 to 16, according to early exit polls — a tally that would be larger than Mr. Obama’s victory among black voters eight years earlier. They represented 62 percent of the electorate, according to exit polls, even higher than in 2008.
The result positions Mrs. Clinton for a sweep of the South in a few days on Super Tuesday and puts the burden on Mr. Sanders to post decisive victories elsewhere. If he does not — and the polls, at least so far, are not encouraging — Mrs. Clinton seems likely to amass a significant and possibly irreversible lead.
For Mrs. Clinton, the path to the presidential nomination is straightforward: fight Mr. Sanders to a draw among the nonblack voters who dominate the party’s contests in many Northern and Western states, and win by huge margins among black voters, who represent about a quarter of Democratic voters nationally. They represent the majority of Democrats in the South, which will play a crucial role on Super Tuesday.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/upshot/hillary-clintons-winning-numbers-in-south-carolina-suggest-sweep-in-south.html
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