Bernie Sanders didn’t mince words about his huge South Carolina primary loss to Hillary Clinton.
“We got decimated,” Sanders told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, one day after he lost by nearly 50 percent in the Palmetto State.
“The only positive thing for us is we won the actually, the 29 years of age and younger vote. And that was good,” Sanders added. “But we got killed.”
Sanders’ loss resulted in large part from his failure to compete with Clinton among African-American voters, who make up a majority of South Carolina’s Democratic electorate.
Nearly 60 percent of Democrats who voted Saturday in the state were black, and more than eight in 10 of those people voted for Clinton, according to exit polls. Sanders has won only one of four Democratic early-voting contests, New Hampshire. He acknowledged attracting black voters to his campaign is something he is going to have to improve on.
But the Vermont senator remained optimistic about his chances in states outside of the Southern states, where Clinton has a “firewall” of support.
“You’re going to see us much better in New York State, where I think we have a shot to win, in California and in Michigan,” he said.
