Clinton’s support soars among SC Democrats

S.C. Democratic primary voters overwhelmingly want Hillary Clinton to be their presidential nominee, according to a Winthrop Poll released Wednesday.

Seventy-one percent of S.C. Democrats likely to vote in the Feb. 27 presidential primary – including 80 percent of African Americans polled – said they planned to vote for Clinton.

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist from Vermont, finished a distant second at 15 percent support, leading former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley at 2 percent.

“South Carolina is currently Clinton country,” said Winthrop Poll director Scott Huffmon. “While Sanders has drawn large and boisterous crowds – including here at Winthrop – it appears that those crowds might not have significant overlap with likely primary voters.

“Sanders must convert campaign excitement into long-term voter commitment to begin to close the gap.”

Clinton’s lead in South Carolina’s first-in-the-South primary could prove critical in helping her clinch the Democratic nomination.

In Iowa, where voters will hold the first 2016 presidential contest, Clinton has a 20-plus-percentage-point lead over Sanders, her closest challenger, according to an average of polls. But Sanders and Clinton statistically are tied in New Hampshire, which adjoins Sanders’ home state of Vermont.

A Sanders win in New Hampshire could set the stage for the Democratic candidates to come to South Carolina looking for momentum. In the Palmetto State, the candidates will face their first major test among African-American voters, who make up more than half of the state’s Democratic primary voters.

“African Americans constitute one of the most important constituencies for the Democratic Party,” accounting for “a much larger portion (of S.C. Democrats) than you'll see in the Iowa caucus or New Hampshire primary,” Huffmon said.

And those black Democrats are sold on Clinton.

Sanders and O’Malley – who, like Clinton, have been courting black voters – picked up only 8 percent and 1 percent support, respectively, among black S.C. Democrats, according to the poll.

In turn, the S.C. primary could be a gauge of how well the Democratic candidates will do as they compete in several other Southern states with large black Democratic populations that follow the S.C. primary. Several of those Deep South contests will take place on March 1, or “Super Tuesday.”

The Winthrop Poll surveyed 832 likely S.C. Democratic presidential primary voters from Oct. 24 to Nov. 1 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.

Clinton is the most electable candidate, S.C. Democrats say, with 87 percent saying she can win the general election, the poll found. In contrast, more than half said Sanders and O’Malley cannot win.

Still, Sanders can improve his chances of winning the Palmetto State, Huffmon said.

"(A) strong showing by Sanders, especially in New Hampshire, could go a long way with changing South Carolina Democrats' views about his general election chances.”

Other findings:

▪  While 65 percent of S.C. Democrats polled said they would describe Clinton as honest, one in four said they would not use that description for the former secretary of state. Clinton’s candidacy has been dogged by congressional and federal probes into her use of a private email server when she led the State Department.

▪  S.C. Democratic primary voters “appear to be ambivalent” about Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump, Huffmon said. Nearly 40 percent of those polled said Trump would be the easiest Republican for the Democratic nominee to beat. Meanwhile, more than one in five poll respondents said Trump is the greatest threat to electing a Democratic president in 2016.

▪  Vice President Joe Biden’s decision not to seek the nomination has led to more S.C. support for both Clinton and Sanders. Thirty-four percent of Clinton supporters and 46 percent of Sanders’ backers said they would have voted for Biden instead.

▪  Despite campaigning for South Carolina’s Democratic candidate for governor last year, O’Malley is unfamiliar to many Democrats in the state. Asked questions about the candidate, roughly half of poll participants could not form an opinion.

▪  Fifty-seven percent of S.C. Democrats had a favorable opinion of the Black Lives Matter movement, launched in protest of high-profile cases where unarmed black men were killed by police.

This story was originally published November 4, 2015 at 6:21 AM with the headline "Clinton’s support soars among SC Democrats."