COLUMBIA, South Carolina — Propelled by deep support among African-Americans, Hillary Clinton crushed Bernie Sanders in the South Carolina primary on Saturday, regaining an air of inevitability the Vermont senator had deprived her of for many weeks.
With all precincts reporting, Clinton’s margin of victory was remarkable — the former secretary of state beat Sanders 74 percent to 26 percent. She won every county in South Carolina, often by more than 60 points, according to the Associated Press.
Sanders’ strongest showing came in northern Pickens County, where he netted 44 percent of the vote. His worst was Allendale County in the south, where he picked up a little more than 8 percent of the vote.
The two voting groups Sanders won Saturday were white men and white voters under 30, according to an analysis by the New York Times.
According to NBC News exit polls, Clinton won big in black communities, netting nearly 90 percent of African-American votes, and her total number of votes — more than 270,000 — rivaled Barack Obama’s historic 2008 showing, when more than 295,000 citizens checked his name.
Speaking before hundreds at the University of South Carolina’ Volleyball Center, Clinton was jubilant. She shifted her rhetoric toward the general election, proudly declaring “tomorrow this campaign goes national.”
She spent little time contrasting her positions with Sanders, instead taking aim at the Republican front-runner, Donald Trump.
“Despite what you hear, we don’t need to make America great again,” Clinton said. “America has never stopped being great!”
“Instead of building walls,” she added, “we need to be tearing down barriers.”
In a statement made from Minnesota, Sanders congratulated the former secretary of state before looking ahead to Super Tuesday, where the campaign hopes to win a number of the 11 states that vote — Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma and hometown Vermont.
“Let me be clear on one thing tonight: This campaign is just beginning,” Sanders said. “Our grass-roots political revolution is growing state by state, and we won’t stop now.”
The Sanders campaign anticipated a South Carolina loss, and the Vermont senator spent most of Saturday in Texas, where he fired up more than 17,000 people at rallies in Austin and Dallas.
“We want to do better than you would expect, whatever that is,” spokesman Michael Briggs said at a lightly attended rally in Orangeburg on Friday.
Clinton trampled expectations.
While polling averages had the former secretary of state up in the Palmetto State by more than 27 points, she ended up beating Sanders by nearly 48 points.
A few blocks away from Clinton’s victory party in Columbia, in a dark, second-floor room at Pearlz Oyster Bar, roughly 60 Sanders fans and a handful of staffers watched as NBC declared Clinton the winner, moments after polls closed.
Christale Spain, the primary state director, looked dejected as she sipped from a glass of red wine, but insisted, “I feel good.”
Spain said canvassers were out aggressively throughout the day getting people to the polls, adding that she was proud of the 200 staffers organizing in 10 offices throughout the state.
“We started here polling in single digits,” Spain said. “So we have come from a very, very long way to get to where we are … it was a difficult task.”
Many of the gathered supporters — most of them white — said they had volunteered nearly every weekend for months, placing yard signs, making phone calls and setting up chairs before rallies.
A number had attended many Sanders rallies, and one man said he worked through Friday night putting Sanders signs near polling locations.
Being some of the most die-hard supporters in the state, the crowd at the bar remained generally optimistic about Sanders’ prospects beyond South Carolina. Many said the Vermont senator could have won with more time.
“I didn’t expect very much different, this is South Cackalacky,” said Sara Williams, 66, who said Sanders can still clinch the nomination. “I mean they did vote for The Donald. Seriously, we have some very mentally deranged people in this state.”
The hard-line supporters also expressed deep disdain for Clinton, and many clapped and cheered when the audio in the bar cut out midway through her speech.
Sanderistas called Clinton a “corporate lawyer,” a “warmonger,” alleging that “Goldman Sachs is powering her.”
During her speech, one man, holding a beer, said Clinton only won because “people are voting with their genitalia.”
Columbia resident Brenda Roy said she volunteered for at least three hours on most weekends, and said Sanders was genuine and will fight for everyday Americans.
She, like many others, were optimistic, saying, “I feel good. We are all going to be volunteering again for Bernie here in the general election.”
Roger Bouchard, who worked as a milkman in Burlington when Sanders was mayor, chimed in to say that “I’m not worried at all.”
“He keeps gaining endorsements, and I think we really got a strong shot at getting to the general election,” he said. “Absolutely, absolutely.”
Others weren’t as hopeful, killing the pain with a drink or two and openly wishing Sanders had performed better.
“Let’s get some upbeat music on,” one man in a Sanders shirt said. “This feels like a funeral parlor or something.”
While Clinton’s clobbering of Sanders has reporters and pundits declaring that the Vermont senator’s chances of grasping the nomination are nearly dead, Bernie’s rhetoric will certainly make it into the general election, even if he does not.
“It’s important that Wall Street never threaten Main Street again,” Clinton said, channeling Sanders. “No bank can be too big to fail and no executive too powerful to jail.”
