Turnout in S.C. primary meets Democrats’ modest goal

Voting in South Carolina’s Democratic presidential primary Saturday met the modest goal that party leaders set.

Turnout was on pace to approach 400,000, the upper limit of what party leaders predicted.

That total is about half the total in the Republican primary a week earlier.

Reports from precincts throughout the state indicated light voting in many areas “with pockets of moderate turnout,” State Election Commission spokesman Chris Whitmire said.

State Democratic Party chairman Jaime Harrison predicted turnout would wind up between voting levels in previous Democratic primaries — about 292,000 in 2004 and about 532,000 in 2008.

Those contests featured multiple candidates. But “the dynamics are different” in a two-candidate race like Saturday’s, he said.

The GOP turnout record came after an often combative showdown among six candidates that attracted a fourth of the state’s nearly 3 million voters to cast ballots.

In contrast, the Democrats’ match between the landslide winner, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont was low-key and noncompetitive.

The Democratic race never came close to matching the political drama surrounding the GOP contest, University of South Carolina political scientist Robert Oldendick said.

Clinton’s voting strength was rooted in long-time connections among African-Americans, who cast almost two-thirds of S.C. ballots Saturday. Her campaign in the state also started much earlier.

Sanders tried to catch up, attracting large crowds and stirring enthusiasm among younger supporters.

But his campaign knew a win was a long-shot. Sanders struggled to gain traction even after emphasizing criminal-justice topics intended to appeal to African Americans.

The 53,000 absentee ballots cast were a significant increase over past Democratic primary totals but fell short of the almost 60,000 cast in the GOP race last weekend.

This story was originally published February 27, 2016 at 10:16 PM with the headline "Turnout in S.C. primary meets Democrats’ modest goal."