SC Democratic Primary Results

Hillary Clinton trounced Bernie Sanders in the South Carolina Primary yesterday.  The final result was Clinton as almost 74% to Sanders' 26%, a nearly 3 to 1 margin.

The margin of victory was even bigger than expected.  Clinton was polling 25%-30% above Sanders in most polls.  The increased margin shows that the Clinton campaign really pulled out all stops to get supporters to the polls while the Sanders campaign, seeing  an inevitable loss, did not make as much of an effort there, turning its focus to Super Tuesday.

Clinton won among virtually all groups, blacks, whites, all age groups except 18-24 year olds, all levels of education, income levels, among liberals, moderates, and conservatives.  Other than the very young, Sanders only one with first time voters and with independents over Democrats.  You can view the demographic details at CNN.

The upshot of all this is that Clinton looks very strong going into Super Tuesday next week.  She did not want a repeat of the 2008 race where she and her opponent both looked close as the early primary period came to an end.   She wanted to look inevitable, and she does.  I will handicap Super Tuesday in my next post, but it seems clear that Clinton now has a commanding lead.  Absent some major event that causes a huge shift, Clinton should cruise to the nomination.

Eve of the SC Democratic Primary

Today, a week after the Republicans, the Democrats of South Carolina begin voting for their party's Presidential nominee in the last contest before Super Tuesday.

Hillary Clinton is expected to trounce Bernie Sanders in this State, where African-Americans make up a majority of Democratic voters, and where Clinton has been courting black leaders and other party leaders for years.  This is one primary where experience and years of planning will pay dividends.  Don't expect any last minute surprises.  I'll ignore the obvious point that surprises are, by definition, unexpected.  However little should change here without any vote altering events appearing in the news in the past week or two.  About 10% of the voters were undecided as of the latest polls from last week.

More and more, Hillary seems to be the inevitable nominee (really, this time).  Polls show her expecting to win South Carolina by a good 25 points over Sanders.  SC voters have never seemed to "feel the Bern."  Even Joe Biden was beating Bernie in the SC polls back in November, and Biden was not even campaigning.

With a sold win in Nevada and an even larger win in South Carolina, Hillary should move into Super Tuesday as the leading candidate.  If the takes a solid majority of the delegates then, Bernie should quickly become a distant memory.