Hillary Clinton’s White-Flight Problem

Hillary Clinton’s victory in the South Carolina Democratic primary and her stunning success among black voters masks a potentially serious long-term problem — weakness among white voters, particularly men.

True, she won the white vote Saturday. But despite losing nearly three quarters of the vote overall, Sen. Bernie Sanders came within a eight percentage points of beating her with white South Carolinians. And among white men, the socialist took 56 percent. The result is becoming a trend: Sanders essentially fought Clinton to a draw among white voters in Iowa, crushed her in the mostly white New Hampshire Democratic primary and lost by just 2 percentage points among white in the Nevada caucuses.

While remaining an overwhelming favorite to capture her party’s nomination, the former secretary of state’s continuing weakness among white voters likely worries her campaign team as it looks ahead to the general election. If Clinton turns off white Democrats, what will be her impact on white Republicans and independents in the fall? And will white Democrats come out to support her?

To win a general election, it will be much more important for her to hold her own among white voters, who will make up a much larger share of the overall electorate than it does among the Democratic Party. Non-Hispanic whites likely will make up about 7 in 10 voters in the general election.

Her margin for error will be slim. In 2012, President Obama won 93 percent of the black vote, meaning it will be hard to improve on that — particularly with questions about whether Clinton will be able to equal turnover level among blacks motivated to vote for the first African-American president. Overall, about 160,000 fewer people voted in the primary than in 2008.

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The Republican share of the white vote has been on the rise. Republican Mitt Romney won 59 percent of the white vote, up from the 55 percent percent John McCain won in 2008.

Clinton’s problems among white voters — particularly white men — could be exacerbated if Donald Trump is the Republican nominee. His signature issues of trade and immigration address the economic anxieties of men, especially blue-collar men who have been hammered by economic disruption over the past couple of decades.

Some analysts have suggested Trump might be able to poach lower-income union members who traditionally make up a core constituency of the Democratic Party.

There were other warning signs for Clinton on an otherwise big night. Nearly a quarter of voters rated honesty and trustworthiness as the qualities that matter most in a candidate, and Sanders lost this group only 51 percent to 49 percent. That was among the senator’s best showings of any subgroup in South Carolina.

Clinton fared worse on that question among white voters; About 40 percent of them disagreed that Clinton can be trusted. That kind of distaste calls into question whether they will be motivated to turn out in November.

With lingering concerns over her use of a private email server to send and receive messages with sensitive information and her still-questionable explanations over the attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, the honesty issue is not likely to go away in November.

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As he has throughout the early primary season, Sanders did well with young voters, winning 54 percent of people younger than 30. But younger voters made up only 15 percent of the primary electorate, a smaller share than in the previous three states.

Clinton banked heavily on black voters to come to her rescue after her blowout loss in New Hampshire. In the first real test of that strategy, she scored a resounding victory. Her 86 percent share of black voters was even higher than Obama’s in 2008 when he beat her in the Palmetto State.

Clinton’s easy win is a good sign for her heading into next week’s Super Tuesday contests, where many of the 11 states and America Samoa have demographics similar to South Carolina. But Sanders issued a statement Saturday declaring that the “campaign is just beginning.” And he has the resources to fight deep into the primary calendar, exposing Clinton’s weaknesses with white voters along the way.

“Hillary Clinton is set up to have a good stretch of states over the next few weeks,” said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “But Sanders is well-funded, and he’s going to try to eke out wins in states where he can. The proportional system (of awarding delegates) makes it hard to catch up, but it also makes it hard to build a big lead.”