COLUMBIA, SC – Barack Obama rolled over Hillary Rodham Clinton last night in the South Carolina primary, scoring his second big electoral win with overwhelming support among black voters.
Obama blew by Clinton to capture 54 percent of the vote in early returns, a convincing victory in a state where he had led the polls.
Clinton came in second with 27 percent, and native son John Edwards was in third place at 19 percent, with 86 percent of precincts reporting.
Obama emerged from a brutal brawl, where he had complained at having to battle two candidates at once: Clinton and her formidable husband, Bill, who led the attack on his record here.
“He won fair and square,” Bill Clinton told a crowd in Independence, Mo. “Now we go to Feb. 5th and millions of Americans finally get in the act.”
Exit polls showed that nearly six in 10 voters, including about equal amounts of blacks and whites, considered the former president’s aggressive campaigning an important factor – and those voters tended to go with Obama.
“South Carolina voters rejected the politics of the past,” said Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs after the stunning win.
The victory gives Obama new strength heading toward a tough fight with Clinton that now goes nationwide with 22 states ready to vote on “Super-Duper Tuesday,” Feb. 5.
Obama cleaned up among the state’s African-American voters – who make up more than half of the primary electorate – according to exit polls, getting about 80 percent of the black vote.
Clinton, whose husband’s administration was hugely popular among black voters, got just 17 percent of the their vote.
Last night’s win was Obama’s first since he shocked Clinton in the Iowa caucuses, before her campaign orchestrated a remarkable comeback in New Hampshire, and she fought back a powerhouse union endorsement to beat him in Nevada.
And Obama’s victory here gives him a winning formula to try to plow other states in the Old Confederacy for votes.
His campaign scheduled an immediate swing to Georgia and Alabama, which also have sizeable black populations.
The Clinton camp sought to downplay expectations here all week, hinting that an Obama win was all but expected.
The Clinton camp even scooted out of a Columbia hotel lobby before the results were in.
The campaign in South Carolina was the nastiest of the election.
Obama slammed Clinton in a debate for sitting on the corporate board of Wal-Mart, while Clinton whacked him for doing legal work for a “slum landlord.”
Bill Clinton went on several tirades against the media, even as black lawmakers backing Obama accused Clinton of using racial code words.