Live
Audio Only
Bernie Sanders is far behind Hillary Clinton when it comes to the polls in South Carolina, but he appears to be outperforming her on the ground in the race for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.
As of now, according to a report from MSNBC, Sanders has opened five times as many offices in the state as Clinton, with 240 staffers — 80 percent of them Black — making the case to voters one on one in an attempt to build on his decisive victory earlier this month in the New Hampshire primary. This on-the-ground work may account for the significantly higher number of Google searches for "Sanders" in South Carolina than for "Clinton," according to FiveThirtyEight.
“That’s real infrastructure,” a political consultant from South Carolina told MSNBC. “(Donald) Trump lost Iowa because his campaign didn’t have infrastructure and Ted Cruz did. That’s what gets people to the polls. And Hillary is the very person who should know about infrastructure, because that’s how she lost to Obama in 2008 in the first place.”
ANALYSIS: South Carolina Will Test Candidates' Support Among Black Voters
The racial makeup of Sanders' suggests he is making a major push to win over South Carolina's Black population, which accounts for 50 percent of voters who turn out on election day. Both campaigns only have 30 percent Black or Latino staff nationally, according to Inclusiv, a diversity hiring initiative.
Sanders’ popularity among young voters includes Black youth in South Carolina, according to NPR, who could convince their parents and grandparents to vote for the Vermont senator come Feb. 27. Senior citizens are also part of Sanders’ strategy: “Bernie Bingo," a game promoted by the senator's campaign, teaches those who play all about his major policies -- and, according to MSNBC, offers those who win a ride to the polls.
Black voters may remember that Clinton's campaign came under fire several times for perceived racism following Obama’s 2008 victory in South Carolina, with former President Bill Clinton appearing to have attributed Obama's victory to voters having voted based on race alone.
ANALYSIS: Bernie Sanders Now Needs to Focus on Black and Latino Voters
On the issues, African-American voters identify job creation, health care and education as top priorities, according to a study by the NAACP — all issues on which Bernie Sanders has a more progressive record, according to Eric Garner's daughter and prominent Black social critics such as Ta-Nehisi Coates and Michelle Alexander.
Still, many Black pundits have expressed disappointment over Sanders' history of favoring a strictly class-based analysis over race, though pressure from activists associated with the Black Lives Matter movement has succeeded in shifting both his positions and rhetoric.
OPINION: A Black History of White Empathy
In the end, though, voters that prefer Bernie’s platform may vote for the more pragmatic and electable candidate, largely considered to be Clinton.
State Senator Ronnie Sabb told MSNBC that despite the low foot presence, Black Carolinians may end up voting for Clinton because of her claimed ability to get things done. “If the black president couldn’t do (what Sanders is promising)," he said, "what can Bernie do?”
Newsletter
