Fox News Poll: Clinton still way ahead in South Carolina
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While the Democratic race in South Carolina has narrowed, Hillary Clinton continues to trounce Bernie Sanders.
Likely Democratic primary voters favor Clinton over Sanders by 28 points (56-28 percent), according to a Fox News poll released Thursday. Another 17 percent remain undecided or plan to back someone else.
CLICK TO READ THE POLL RESULTS
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In December, Clinton held a 44-point lead (65-21 percent).
The South Carolina electorate is more diverse than those of Iowa and New Hampshire, the two states that have held contests so far -- and that helps the former secretary of state. Even so, sentiment has shifted among some of Clinton’s best groups.
Clinton led among black voters by 82-11 in December (71 points). The new poll finds she leads Sanders by 63-21 percent among blacks (42 points). That’s still a big lead, no doubt. But there’s been a 29-point narrowing.
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In addition, two months ago Clinton topped Sanders by 55 points among women (72-17 percent). Now she’s up by 33 points (58-25 percent).
Younger voters are a key Sanders constituency. In New Hampshire, the Fox News exit poll showed he outperformed Clinton by 49 points among voters under 45, and by a whopping 67 points among the under 30 crowd. The new poll, however, shows that in South Carolina, he trails Clinton among those under age 45 by 11 points (49-38 percent). Sanders trails by just three points among those under 35.
Voters ages 45+ prefer Clinton by 42 points (62 vs. 20 percent).
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Men (by 53-32 percent) and whites (by 48-36 percent) also back Clinton.
Clinton’s supporters are more committed: 82 percent of her backers are “certain” to vote for her compared to 69 percent of Sanders’. Twenty-nine percent of his supporters may change their mind, while 17 percent of Clinton backers say the same.
The South Carolina Democratic Primary is Saturday, February 27.
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The Fox News Poll is conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R). The telephone poll (landline and cellphone) was conducted February 15-17, 2016 with live interviewers among a random sample of 1,401 South Carolina voters selected from a statewide voter file. Results for the 642 likely Democratic primary voters have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus four percentage points.