US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton crushed rival Bernie Sanders by almost 50 percentage points in the South Carolina primary on Saturday as African-American voters helped propel her into next week’s crucial “Super Tuesday” voting.
The rout of Sanders solidified Clinton’s status as the strong front-runner to capture the party’s nomination for the November 8 election in her quest to become America’s first woman president.
With more than 95% of the votes counted in South Carolina, Clinton led Sanders by a 48-point margin, dramatically reversing her 28-point loss in the state to President Barack Obama during their bitter 2008 primary battle.
The former secretary of state decisively established her strength among black voters, a crucial Democratic constituency, giving her the upper hand on Super Tuesday in six Southern states with big black populations.
The result was Clinton’s third victory in the first four Democratic contests, and raised more questions about whether Sanders, the democratic socialist US senator from Vermont, will be able to expand his support beyond his base of predominantly white liberals.
Sanders, who has energised the party’s liberal wing and brought young people to the polls by attacking income inequality and Wall Street excess, needs a breakthrough win in a key state in the next few weeks to keep his hopes alive.
The Democratic race now becomes a broader national contest. Eleven states, including six in the South with large minority populations where polls show Clinton with big leads, will vote in the Democratic nomination fight on Super Tuesday and four more over the next weekend.
In South Carolina, exit polls showed Clinton winning big with almost every constituency. She won 9 of every 10 black voters, as well as women, men, urban, suburban, rural, very liberal and conservative voters. Sanders won among voters between ages 18 and 29, and among white men.
Clinton’s camp hoped the big win in South Carolina, after more narrow victories in Iowa and Nevada and Sanders’ clear win in New Hampshire, will set her up for a big night on Tuesday, when about 875 delegates will be up for grabs, more than one-third of those needed to win the nomination.
Recognising his steep odds in South Carolina, Sanders had spent most of the past week in states that will vote in March 1. As the results rolled in on Saturday, he held a rally in Minnesota.
