The fourth Democratic Primary of South Carolina, has been overwhelmingly won by Hillary Clinton. Hillary has now won three out of the four primaries. With a hundred percent reporting, Clinton won 73.5% of the vote claiming 39 delegates in the process. This victory has extended her lead to 544 to 85 over Sanders, including superdelegates or 91 to 65 without them. However, this only represents 2% of pledged delegates for the election.
A greater portion of the vote in South Carolina is being made up by Afro-American voters, and it appears it is this that has lead to Clinton’s sizeable victory. Exit polls are suggesting that Clinton has won a larger percentage of the black vote than Obama in 2008. With many suggesting South Carolina was looking for somebody to carry on Obama’s legacy. However, voter turnout was down 31% from 2008 and youth vote was very low, both of which badly hurt Sanders. South Carolina is also described as a more moderate to conservative state, which suggested early on this would be an easy state for Clinton.
In fact Sanders has dedicated very few resources to South Carolina throughout the campaign. Sander’ has instead put more time and resources into the ‘Super Tuesday’ states.
South Carolina is the first of the medium sized primary states, with a total of 53 delegates on offer. From here on out in the Democratic race the delegate count becomes more and more important. It is important to remember throughout the election that it is not the number of states that matters, but instead the number of delegates won in each state. For example it is more important to win a big state like California, rather than a collection of smaller delegate count states.
The next step in the Democratic race is of course the mighty ‘Super Tuesday’. Super Tuesday will be playing host to eleven state primaries. Amongst these primaries is Georgia, and its 102 delegates, Massachusetts, with 91 delegates, Virginia, and its 95 delegates, and most importantly Texas with its massive 222 delegates. Although Super Tuesday won’t decide who will win the nomination, it will provide a much clearer picture of what the nomination will look like. With 859 delegates on offer in one day, the race really starts to hot up.
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