The
results of the South Carolina Primary for the Democrats were declared on 26th January. Sen. Barack Obama was the clear winner of the South Carolina Primary. He defeated Sen. Hillary Clinton, his nearest competitor, by an overwhelming margin.
Barack Obama received 55 percent of the votes, as compared to Sen. Clinton’s 27% and 18% of John Edwards. Obama’s success has been largely credited to the high support he drew from the black voters, who accounted for more than half of the total delegates in South Carolina. Obama secured more than 80% of the Black votes, as compared to only 17% received by Sen. Clinton. Sen. John Edwards secured 45% of the white votes, the highest among the three.
Meeting a cheering crowd of supporters soon after the declaration of the results, Obama thanked the voters in South Carolina for their support. He addressed what he considered to be a ‘diverse coalition of Americans’, and said that their belief in him was indicative of their trust in the process of change within American society that he endorsed. He also considerably downplayed the racial issue. The crowd also got behind him, chanting slogans like ‘We want Change’, ‘Yes we can’ and ‘Race doesn’t matter’.
Sen. Hillary Clinton congratulated Sen. Obama on his victory. However, her supporters claimed that the real significance of this win will only become clear after the Super Tuesday of Feb. 5, when Georgia will be the only state with a considerable number of black delegates among the 22 participating states.
Sen. John Edwards directly congratulated Sen. Obama on his victory, and said he looked forward to the competition in the forthcoming primaries.
