Mitch Perry
Although Bernie Sanders is giving Hillary Clinton a run for her money in polls in the early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire, two new CNN/ORC polls released on Monday shows that Clinton is dominating the Vermont independent in Nevada and South Carolina, the next two states in the Democratic presidential primary contest.
Clinton has the support of 50 percent of those who say they are likely to attend the Democratic caucus scheduled for February 20 in Nevada . Sanders follows at 34 percent, then Vice President Joe Biden at twelve percent, with the rest of the field garnering less than 1 percent support.
In South Carolina, Clinton has a more than 2-1 margin lead over Sanders, getting 49 percent support to Sanders 24 percent. Vice President Joe Biden (who has still not decided whether he’ll enter the race) is at 18 percent, and former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley is at 3 percent.
Should Biden decide to sit out the race for the presidency, Clinton’s lead grows in both states. In South Carolina, if Biden were not o run, Clinton’s support rises to 70 percent, with Sanders at just 20 percent. In Nevada, Clinton gains 8 points to 58 percent while Sanders picks up just 2 points and would stand at 36 percent.
The pollsters say that Clinton’s big lead in South Carolina is because of the fact that Sanders has little popularity with black voters, who made up a majority of Democratic primary voters in the state in 2008, the last time there was a competitive Democratic primary. Back then, black voters broke 78 percent for Barack Obama to 19 percent. for Clinton.
Among black voters in South Carolina, 59 percent of black voters say they back Clinton, 27 percent say Biden and just 4 percent for Sanders. Among white voters, Sanders has the edge, 44 percent to 31 percent for Clinton and 22 percent for Biden. Without Biden in the race, it’s a near-even split among whites, 48% Clinton to 47% Sanders, while blacks break 84 percent to Clinton and just 7 percent would back Sanders.
The CNN/ORC polls were conducted by telephone October 3-10. A total of 1,009 South Carolina adults were interviewed, including 301 who said they were likely to vote in the Democratic presidential primary. In Nevada, interviews were conducted with 1,011 adults, including 253 who said they were likely to participate in the Democratic presidential caucus. Results among likely Democratic voters in South Carolina have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 5.5 percentage points, for Nevada Democratic caucus goers, it is 6 points.
