In S.C., ‘who is Bernie Sanders?’
Poll, interviews show black voters sticking with the familiar Clinton
CHARLESTON, S.C. — His hands caked in grime from his repair job, Walter Brown coughed out a laugh when asked for his thoughts about Bernie Sanders, whose insurgent presidential campaign has electrified liberals around the country.
“Who is Bernie Sanders?” he said. Brown, 59, is leaning toward Hillary Clinton and doesn’t plan to start researching other options.
“I don’t have time,” he said, gesturing toward the downtown building where he’s been working. “I’m here all day.”
Sanders’ effort to broaden his appeal beyond white progressives and young people has run into a roadblock here in the form of black working-class voters, who in interviews this week repeatedly voiced their loyalty to Clinton.
Several echoed Brown’s point that they have neither time to explore an alternative to Clinton nor interest in learning about Sanders, the U.S. senator from Vermont who was practically unknown in South Carolina before launching his presidential bid.
“She has a three-decade head start,” said Gibbs Knotts, chairman of the political science department at the College of Charleston. “It’s hard for Sanders to make up that kind of ground in a pretty short period of time.”
About half of the elector- ate in South Carolina’s Democratic primary is black, and polls show Clinton leading the group with a wide margin. Thirty-one percent of blacks likely to vote in Saturday’s primary said they didn’t have an opinion about Sanders — more than twice the number for Clinton, according to a Monmouth University poll released this month.
Alberta Ross, 77, says she doesn’t know anyone at her church in North Charleston who is voting for Sanders, and she doesn’t know much about him either.
“I’m not up on all of them,” she said. “I’m just up on the one I want” — meaning Clinton — “and the one I don’t” — meaning Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner.
Such unfamiliarity with Sanders is a potential roadblock for him not only in South Carolina but also with black voters in other states, even though he’s cut deeply into Clinton’s backing among the young and the white.
Ahead of Saturday’s primary, Sanders has launched a tour of the state’s predominantly black colleges and universities, hoping that students will be receptive to his message. On Friday, he scheduled a stop at Claflin University in Orangeburg. The Clinton campaign, meanwhile, has its own black college voter turnout effort.
Besides Clinton’s strong name recognition, political observers see other reasons for Sanders’ trouble. His approach to economic issues doesn’t always mesh with how many workingclass black voters view the country, said Scott Huffmon, a political scientist.
“When you’re talking about the message of income inequality … most of them see it as a racial issue,” he said.
Sanders has long been outspoken about racism, participating in the March on Washington in 1963 and getting arrested for protesting housing segregation that same year while a student at the University of Chicago.
But black voters in South Carolina are more likely to trust Clinton on issues related to their communities, the Monmouth poll showed, and the Charleston area has seen some of the country’s most painful racial episodes over the last year.
First, an unarmed black man was shot to death by a white North Charleston police officer while running away from a traffic stop. Then a young white man massacred nine black parishioners in a racially motivated shooting in the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston.
For many black voters, warm feelings about Clinton are tied to their affection for her husband.
“There’s a history between African-Americans and the Clintons,” said Carneal McCoy, 52, of North Charleston.
Some black voters are skeptical of how Sanders would accomplish his ambitious agenda, especially since President Barack Obama was stymied often by a Republican-held Congress.
“I know Bernie wants to do a lot. But are those things going to get accomplished?” said Arnold Jenkins, 52, a corrections officer.
Sanders has been rallying with black celebrities to try to close the gap as much as possible in South Carolina.
Killer Mike, a rapper, was scheduled to appear with him at Claflin on Friday. Director Spike Lee recorded a radio spot that riffs on a monologue from his classic film about racial tension in Brooklyn, “Do the Right Thing.” And actor Danny Glover is campaigning for Sanders.
Glover was at a field office in a Charleston strip mall on Monday, when one potential black supporter said he was disappointed in Clinton’s support for strict criminal justice policies in the 1990s that increased the incarceration rate among minorities.
Troy White, 41, says he’s not sure whom he wants to vote for now.
“I’m curious about Bernie,” he said.
But in the Charleston area, there’s not that many black voters who are still curious.
“I got nothing against him,” said James Brown, 76, of Sanders. “I don’t know that much about him.”