Who supported Hillary Clinton in South Carolina?
COLUMBIA, South Carolina Hillary Clinton won the Democratic primary in South Carolina by a mile on Saturday, giving her a big boost heading into Super Tuesday. CBS News spoke to voters in some of the major demographic groups that supported her:
African Americans
African American voters in South Carolina, who made up a pivotal 61 percent of the Democratic primary electorate, voted overwhelmingly in support of Clinton. At the polls at Greenview Park in Columbia on Saturday morning, it was hard to find an African American voter who said that he or she had voted for Sanders.
- Live South Carolina Democratic primary results
- Republican and Democratic delegate scorecards
- South Carolina exit polls
"I've known Hillary Clinton I guess about 100 years," said Former South Carolina State Senator Kay Patterson, who served 34 years in the state's legislature, after he cast his vote for Clinton. "She's a lady of integrity and honor."
He cited her work in South Carolina as a young lawyer: "I know her."
Despite holding a significant lead in the polls with African Americans in the weeks leading up to the primary, Clinton worked tirelessly this week to secure crucial votes: she spoke to members of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. at a luncheon on Wednesday, made a surprise visit to a popular soul food restaurant in Charleston on Friday and, later, visited South Carolina State University, a historically black university in Orangeburg. Accompanying her at many of her campaign stops was Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC).
But Joann Thompson, a 47-year-old dentist, who voted for Clinton at W.J. Keenan High School in Columbia said Clinton's effort to reach out to African American voters was not what swayed her.
"I go to church for something different," she said.
Women (and men)
"I think it's about time that we have a female president," said Pearl Whitaker, a 57-year-old Richland County deputy sheriff, after she voted for Clinton in Columbia on Saturday. "I know she would do an outstanding job."
Whitaker was one of a majority of women who turned out for Clinton in South Carolina. Clinton won 79 percent of the female vote on Saturday, according to exit polls. Many of those women likely were in the audience this week at events across the state headlined by a Sybrina Fulton and four other mothers, known as "the mothers of the movement," who lost children to gun violence or police brutality.
"We have an opportunity to have someone who's gonna stand up for us as African Americans...for us as women," Fulton said, speaking alongside Clinton at a church in Columbia on Tuesday. "I say my vote goes to Hillary Clinton."
But in South Carolina, Clinton also won over men -- exit polls show that 68 percent of men voted for Clinton.
Seniors
Exit polls also showed that Clinton won the majority of the vote from South Carolinians aged 45 and older, and with voters over 65, she won by a landslide 77 points, 88 percent to Sanders' 11 percent.
But the results with older South Carolinians reveal a weakness for Clinton that has dogged her in each early state: most young voters overwhelmingly backed Sanders. Jasmine Brown, a 19-year-old college student from Columbia, voted for the first time on Saturday and she gave her vote to Sanders.
"All of my friends and I are voting for him, so I'm really excited," she said, adding that she finds Sanders more relatable to her and her peers. She brushed off the notion that Sanders can't connect with African Americans.
"I've seen him getting arrested for fighting for civil rights," Brown said, referring to a photo found in the Chicago Tribune's archives last week, "so I know he knows what's right and what's wrong."
Churchgoers
Clinton also won the churchgoers: more than 80 percent voters who said they attend religious services once a week or more than once a week both backed Clinton. The Clinton campaign has paid special attention to faith leaders as part of their strategy to get out the vote, hosting national conference calls to take their questions and suggestions and setting up meetings for Clinton with ministers in Philadelphia, Houston and Flint, Michigan.
Clinton has taken to speaking about her personal faith on the campaign trail, too. At a campaign stop at a Methodist church in Florence on Thursday, Clinton reflected on her upbringing in the church.
"I'm very appreciative that I've been given the gift of faith," she said that day, speaking from the dias. "And I think our country, right now, needs faithfulness, doesn't it?"
And in her victory speech in Columbia on Saturday night, Clinton remembered meeting a minister on one of her first trips to the state this cycle. In a call for unity, she quoted scripture:
"Love never fails," she said. "Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."
Rural South Carolinians
Though Clinton won in and outside of the major cities in South Carolina, her greatest geographic margin over Sanders came from rural voters. Seventy-seven percent of voters in small cities and rural areas chose Clinton, who spent her final evening of campaigning in South Carolina at a local fish fry in Orangeburg County.
"I'm here because I know the road to the White House goes through Orangeburg," she said. "I feel very much at home."
Clinton has laid out a plan to re-energize rural communities, which includes proposals to create jobs, make improvements to infrastructure and support small businesses.
And in Orangeburg, where the smell of roasted oysters and fried fish wafted through the air, Clinton made her final pitch, describing campaigning in South Carolina as "pure joy."
"I will not forget you when I'm the Democratic nominee," she said, "and I will not forget you when I am President."