Rejected in 2016, Sanders hopes for a warmer reception in S.C.

South Carolina gave Bernie Sanders the cold shoulder in 2016. Four years and several visits later, Sanders hopes the state is ready to warm to him.

The Vermont senator has spent months working to deepen his ties with the black community in South Carolina, where minority voters make up the majority of the Democratic primary electorate. He returns to South Carolina on Thursday for the first time as a 2020 candidate, eager to prove that those efforts put him in a more competitive position in a state he lost by a staggering 47 points.

“Bernie has kind of laid the groundwork. He’s kept moving,” said state Rep. Terry Alexander, a Sanders supporter. “He never stopped campaigning even after the election. He just kept moving and working, making sure his infrastructure was in place.”

Sanders’ 2016 loss in South Carolina to Hillary Clinton blunted the momentum he generated in the opening primary contests and exposed his weakness with black voters. Rather than skip South Carolina this time around, Sanders’ advisers say they plan to make a serious bid in the first-in-theSouth primary state.

Senior adviser Jeff Weaver told reporters this week that Sanders will be in South Carolina much more frequently than during his first campaign and is putting together a “much stronger team on the ground, much earlier in the process.”