Columbia, South Carolina

In many ways, the South Carolina primary was a free play for Hillary Clinton. She had been down here by double digits since the New Year. South Carolina’s demography was against her, too. In Nevada, the only state so far with a significant black vote, Clinton lost African-American voters to Barack Obama by a margin of 83 percent to 14 percent. Blacks make up 29 percent of the population in South Carolina, and exit polls show that 53 percent of the Democratic electorate today was black, up from 47 percent in 2004.

When both Clintons swooped into the state mid-week, and the polls tightened slightly, it appeared that Hillary Clinton might have thought she could make it a race. But on Friday night, the campaign announced that the Clintons would leave South Carolina today and start campaigning this evening in Tennessee (Hillary) and Missouri (Bill). They knew South Carolina was lost. And was it ever. The final numbers are not yet in, but it appears Obama will win by about 25 points.