Hillary Clinton demolished Bernie Sanders in the South Carolina Democratic primary on Saturday, soothing the sting of her defeat in New Hampshire and setting the stage for a Super Tuesday triumph.
The final margin of victory was a staggering 48 points, with Mrs Clinton winning among black voters by a four-to-one margin and erasing large deficits among young people and progressives.
The candidates will now move on to “Super Tuesday”, when eleven states will go to the polls in a single day. If Mrs Clinton delivers a strong performance three days from now, that could well be the knockout blow to the Sanders campaign.
“Today you sent a message: in America when we stand together there is no barrier too big to break,” Mrs Clinton told jubilant supporters at a victory rally in Columbia, South Carolina. “Tomorrow, this campaign goes national.”
The former secretary of state, who had yet to secure a resounding victory prior to Saturday, had looked to South Carolina as her firewall after early stumbles in Iowa and New Hampshire.
The majority of the Democratic electorate in the southern state is black, and the Clinton family has built an extensive network in the state over the past two decades.
No one anticipated such a massive gap between the rival candidates, however, and there was little question after the results came in about who would enter the upcoming contests with the wind at her back.
Some attributed Mrs Clinton’s dominance to the “Trump factor”. As Donald Trump has tightened his grip on the Republican nomination, the theory goes, Democrats have begun to consolidate on the candidate they view as the strongest alternative in the general election.
Whatever the cause, it was a far different result than eight years ago, when Barack Obama defeated Mrs Clinton in the Palmetto State, a victory which fuelled his drive to the Democratic nomination that year.
Mr Sanders was gracious in defeat, congratulating Mrs Clinton on a “very strong victory”.
“In politics on a given night sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Tonight we lost,” he said, before noting that he expects to win “many, many” delegates on Super Tuesday.
He had fled South Carolina before the results came in, and it was a subdued Mr Sanders who took the stage on Saturday in Minnesota.
“What this election is about is not just electing a president - yeah, that’s pretty important - but it is about transforming America,” he said.
He did signal that he will fight on, however, criticising Mrs Clinton for taking money from Wall St and refusing to turn over transcripts from her paid speeches.
Polls show Mrs Clinton out front in eight of the 11 Super Tuesday states, many of which are in the Southeast and resemble South Carolina from a demographic standpoint.
Mr Sanders leads only in Massachusetts and his home state of Vermont (there is no recent polling data from Colorado).
If Tuesday unfolds as Saturday did, with Mrs Clinton continuing her dominance among minorities while making inroads among the key Sanders demographics of young and well educated voters, the race will be all but over.
With The Telegraph
