Nearly two-thirds of South Carolina Democratic primary voters are black

published 27 February 2016

Early exit polls suggest that nearly two in three voters in South Carolina's Democratic primary on Saturday are African-Americans, a measure which bodes well for Hillary Clinton's prospect of victory in the Palmetto State.

Bernie Sanders has had "a difficult time penetrating the black electorate," especially in the South, explains Scott Huffmon, a political scientist at Winthrop University of Rock Hill, South Carolina. "They’ve heard Clinton say the same things for a long time. They didn’t know who Bernie Sanders was."

If these numbers hold, these rates would mark a significant jump in African-American turnout compared to the last Democratic primary race in 2008.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.