Hillary Clinton is hoping that she can bury Bernie Sanders in South Carolina with the one issue where she is clearly to his left: gun control.
“In essence, Senator Sanders has been [held responsible for] gun safety the same way Trump should be held responsible for improvements in diplomacy. This is unbelievable,” Clinton surrogate Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy told reporters earlier this week. “Our nation is under assault from within and I want a president who understands that.”
Clinton has won two of the three states that have voted in the 2016 Democratic primaries, maintaining her front-runner status, but neither of her wins were by particularly large margins and she lost New Hampshire by 22 points. Despite the campaign’s public attempts to manage expectations, they would clearly like to run up the score against Sanders in South Carolina.
While she lost South Carolina to then-Senator Obama in 2008, this year the Palmetto State is Clinton country. Most voters in the Democratic primary are likely to be black. Sanders has struggled with this voting bloc, and gun control has resonated after the Charleston church massacre last year.
Early estimates suggest that nearly 70 percent of African-Americans will vote for Clinton on Saturday, which would allow her to capture her first solid win. But she needs a high black voter turnout.
“If the African-American community turns out then the primary is Hillary’s, but if the young voters turn out then it’s for Sanders. So there’s a lot of ifs,” Charles Bierbauer, dean of the College of Mass Communications at the University of South Carolina, told the Washington Examiner.
Although both candidates speak of gun safety on the campaign trail, Sanders comes from a gun-friendly state and has occasionally voted against gun control legislation popular with Democrats.
Time and time again, Clinton and her surrogates remind voters of the Vermont lawmaker’s five votes against the Brady Bill, his vote against closing the so-called the Charleston loophole and his vote to allow guns on Amtrak trains, among others.
In response to Clinton’s attacks, Sanders has made slight adjustments to his policy stance. On the eve of the Democratic debate in Charleston, S.C. last month, Sanders announced that he would now support legislation stripping immunity from gun manufacturers, a reversal of his 2005 vote.
“Compare the Sanders record with Clinton’s records on guns. And if guns or gun records are at all an issue to you, you have no choice, you have to support Hillary,” Malloy said, hammering this point home in the days before the South Carolina contest.
Going into the Palmetto State primary, Clinton already leads Sanders by over 15 points in most polls. But rather than resting on the polls and shifting focus to the Super Tuesday states, she has spent as much time as possible in South Carolina to ensure a sweeping win.
“South Carolina is a good bellwether in what to expect in the Southern states. She has the opportunity to come out looking strong,” College of Charleston political science department chair Gibbs Knotts told the Washington Examiner.
He added, “If she was coming off this and going into states like Massachusetts or Washington State or Vermont that wouldn’t be good. But the fact is that the SEC primary will set her apart. It’s going to be hard for Sanders.”
Clinton hopes so.
